Taiwan’s Political Development: 1945–86

Abstract

It was in keeping with imperial tradition that the man appointed by the KMT to be the new Administrator General of Taiwan, Chen Yi, should earlier have been in charge of Fujian province. And it was in keeping with the decadence of KMT rule that Chen Yi was a corrupt general, with a history of brutality and quiet collaboration with the Japanese. As such, he was relatively well known on Taiwan. Links between Taiwan and its mainland neighbour survived the Japanese war and in 1935, about 60 000 Fujian workers lived on Taiwan, mainly for casual seasonal labour. Some had signed up with the labour brokers in Taiwan precisely in order to escape the regime of Chen Yi. Similarly, large numbers of expatriate Taiwanese in Fujian returned to what seemed the lesser evil of Japanese colonialism across the Straits.