TNAG-2498-FCO40-3636-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Taiwan-1992 — Page 46

23 November 1992

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HK/Türen. ними

KC Walker Esq

Senior Research Officer

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Political Adviser's Office Fikc J2E

Hong Kong

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TAIWAN: PENG MING-MIN

25

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SWIA 2AH

Telephone: 071-

210 6219/62

1.

Thankyou for your letter of 12 November. I must confess I am quite puzzled as to why Peng Ming-min should be such a sore spot for the Chinese. I have looked back to the papers that we have from the time of his escape to Sweden (and thence to the United States) from Taiwan in 1970. The Chinese New China News Agency described this in the following terms, on 23 February 1970:

"Since the talks between the US imperialist chieftain Nixon and the head of the reactionary Japanese government Eisaku Sato last November, the criminal activities in plotting the "Taiwan Independence Movement" by the US and Japanese reactionaries have become even more rampant. It was disclosed that at the beginning of this year the US and Japanese reactionaries secretly smuggled their running dog, Peng Ming-min, one of the chieftains of the so called "Taiwan Independence Movement", out of Taiwan and let him conduct extensive manoeuvres. American reporters lost no time in arranging to conduct an "interview" with him. American magazine Newsweek disclosed that the "Taiwan Independence Movement" was peddled by Peng Ming-min at the instigation of US imperialism"....and so on.

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This does not get us very far. Contemporary comments do not suggest that Professor Peng was closely linked with any particular group. According to the Newsweek article referred to by the Chinese, Peng freely admitted that he had "no party, no political organisation, no political power" He had been arrested in 1964 after being implicated in a plot to print leaflets calling for the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek, and was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment which was later commuted to house arrest. As both you and Philip Morrice have commented, was at one time very much favoured by the Nationalists and they seemed to have been grooming him as a native Taiwanese future political leader under their tutelage. His espousal of independence for Taiwan explains their anger and disappointment, but not that of the Communists. In the years following his escape to the United States Peng became one of the best known of the overseas Taiwan pro-independence dissidents. However, it seems to me that these groups have really been pretty much eclipsed in recent years since the DPP has been able to operate pretty freely on Taiwan itself.

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