Abstract
The 1957 Taiwan riots broke out on May 24, with their immediate cause traced to an incident that occurred two months earlier. On March 20 American Army Master Sergeant Robert G. Reynolds killed a “Chinese laborer,” Liu Tzu-jan, on the grounds that Liu had peeped at his wife in a bath at their Yang Ming Shan home. An eight-man jury of the U.S. military tribunal acquitted Reynolds on May 23 of voluntary manslaughter. On May 24 Liu’s widow tearfully protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Taipei, and her woes were broadcasted throughout Taiwan by the Broadcasting Corporation of China. Taiwanese began gathering at the U.S. Embassy to protest against the acquittal, and a crowd of 200 swelled to 6,000 by midday. At about 3.20 p.m., rumors that Reynolds had departed Taiwan sparked riots, leading to violence and rampage of the Embassy and later the nearby U.S. Information Agency. Order was restored only during the night of May 24, with the deployment of 33,000 Kuomintang (KMT/Nationalist) troops. On May 26, President Chiang Kai-shek personally offered apologies to U.S. Ambassador Karl Lott Rankin, and U.S.-Taiwan relations resumed normalcy shortly thereafter. The U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Information Agency were subsequently restored with compensation from Taipei.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See Lee Kuo-cheng 栗国成,“1957 nian taibei liuziran shijian ji 1965 nian meijun zai huadiwei xieding zhi qianding” 1957 年台北「刘自然事件」及 1965 年美军在华 地位协定之签订 [The Liu Tzu-jan Incident at Taipei of 1957 and the Signatures of “Status of Forces Agreement with the Republic of China” in 1965], Dongwu Zhengzhi Xuebao 东吴政治学报 24 (2006): 1–68;
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994, pp. 90–3;
and Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 236–8; The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009, pp. 490–1.
John F. Copper, Taiwan: Nation-State or Province. Philadelphia, PA: Westview Press, 2009, p. 47.
Richard C. Bush, At Cross Purposes: U.S.-Taiwan Relations since 1942. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004, p. 100.
Rankin to State Department, “A Review of U.S. Policy Toward China,” Foreign Service Despatch no. 461, April 25, 1957, serial no. 002080106032004, Chiang Kai Shek (CKS) papers, Academia Historica (AH), Taipei.
See Ralph N. Clough, Island China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 16;
Gary Kintworth, New Taiwan, New China: Taiwan’s Changing Role in the Asia-Pacific Region. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p. 57;
and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Strait Talk: United States-Taiwan Relations and the crisis with China. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 2009, p. 15.
See Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, p. 90; and Karl Lott Rankin, China Assignment. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1964, p. 306.
See Roy, Taiwan, p. 89; Klintworth, New Taiwan, p. 85; and Paul A Cohen, Speaking to History: The Story of King Guojian in Twentieth-Century China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009, pp. 110–11.
Rankin to State Department, “A Review of U.S. Policy Toward China,” Foreign Service Despatch no. 461, April 25, 1957, serial no. 002080106032004, CKS papers, AH.
Ramon H. Myers, “Towards an Enlightened Authoritarian Polity: The Kuomintang Central Reform Committee on Taiwan, 1950–1952,” Journal of Contemporary China, 18 (2009): 191.
Guo Chuanxi et al. 享帷玺 eds, Zhongguo guomindang Taiwan sishinian Shigang 中国国民党台湾四十年史纲 [A history of the KMT 40 years in Taiwan]. Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1993, p. 177.
See George E. Sokolsky, “Taipei Riots: Brilliant Coup from Peking’s Standpoint,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 31, 1957; Chang Ch’un to CKS, telegram, July 21, 1957, serial no. 002080106035008, CKS papers, AH; Michael H. Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983, pp. 73–9, 86–114.
A number of scholars have examined this aspect of rituals. See Roy Lavon Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice. New York: New York University Press, 1999;
and Mark Gibney et al., eds„ The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).
This insight of a morality play that is used to satisfy disparate audiences is drawn from Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon & Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Manila: Ateneo De Manila University Press, 1979.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 See Heng Teow and Yang Huei Pang
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Teow, S.H., Pang, Y.H. (2015). The 1957 Taiwan Riots: Cultural Politics in U.S.-Taiwan Relations in the 1950s. In: Johnson, R.D. (eds) Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137455383_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137455383_18
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49815-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-45538-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)