TNAG-1291-FCO40-1643-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Macau-1985 — Page 21

CODE 18.7"

Reference

Mr Archer, FED

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020/2 i

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Mr Morris, HKD last 11 JAN 1984

Mr Clark

TAIWAN

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1. I attended a Chatham House lunch group on 22 December at which Jonathan Mirsky spoke about a recent trip he made to Taiwan at the invitation of the Taiwan Government Information Service.

2. He was last there twenty years ago. In the intervening period Taiwan had changed out of the recognition. Taipei had become a bustling city very much like Singapore or Hong Kong. Very little of the old city remained. Taiwan's economy had become much more industrialised, he mentioned especially the textiles and electronics industries, and the place had become prosperous with a per capita annual income of around 2,300 US Dollars.

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3. Much of his talk dealt with the tensions between the 2 million or SO 'mainlanders' and the 16 million strong native Taiwanese population. He was in Taiwan

in Taiwan at the time of the elections for the Legislative Yuan which pointed up some of these tensions. It is clear that the mainlanders still have a virtual monopoly on political power. The upper echelons of the government and the Kuomintang almost entirely made up of mainlanders. The Mayors of the three metropolitan areas of Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung are about the only native Taiwanese in influential positions. On the other hand, many of the most outstanding industrialists, scientists and professional people are native Taiwanese, and they are beginning to look for greater say in the running of their own affairs.

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4. Mr Mirsky was particularly interested in the campaign conducted by the opposition "tang-wai" (non-party) candidates. He was impressed with the freedom with which they spoke and the criticisms they made of the Kuomintang, despite the fact that political activity was closely controlled (the time and place of political

political rallies was controlled and at the rallies no speaker was allowed to speak for more than ten minutes).

He showed us the

election pamphlet SE one of the best known opposition candidates Fang Sumin. (Fang is the wife of Lin Yi-Hsiung who was jailed for his part in the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979. She fled from Taiwan to America with her surviving daughter after her

her other two daughters and her mother-in- were murdered on 27 February 1980. The murders are still unsolved. 27 February happens also to be the date of the Kuomintang's bloody suppression of Taiwanese rebels in 1947.

She returned to Taiwan specially to stand for election). The pamphlet contained phrases such as "the

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