Aug. 20 to Aug. 26
On Aug. 24, 1962, Indonesia refused to allow Taiwan and Israel to participate in the Asian Games in Jakarta. And exactly 30 years later, Taiwan severed relations with its long-time close ally, South Korea.
Both events happened because of China, not unlike today’s situation where Taiwan continues to lose allies and faces challenges in international competitions such as being stripped of the right to host the East Asian Youth Games.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The way things happened and the consequences, however, differ from that of today — the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Indonesia’s membership indefinitely for the move and the South Korea incident sparked huge anti-Korean outrage in Taiwan with flags burned, direct flights canceled and other forms of protest.
BARRED FROM COMPETITION
Friederike Trotier writes in The Legacy of the Games of the New Emerging Forces and Indonesia’s Relationship with the International Olympic Committee that the Asian Games Federation (AGF) kept a low profile with regard to the “two Chinas” issue after the Chinese Civil War, and since the Taiwan-based Republic of China was an AGF member, it participated in the 1954 and 1958 Asian Games while the People’s Republic of China stayed home.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Not nearly as powerful as it is today, China could only boycott the 1956 Summer Olympics when Taiwan was also invited. The Chinese Olympic Committee exchanged heated letters with IOC chair Avery Brundage, who was American, including the following passage: “As for your remark that there is a separate government in Taiwan … you must not forget how this situation is brought about … that these traitors are able to survive in Taiwan today is due to the political, economic and military aid brought directly by the US government and the open interference in the internal affairs of our country…”
But Indonesia had different ideas. Its president Sukarno had strong views against imperialism, colonialism and capitalism, and sought to become the leader of emerging nations that had been oppressed by the above forces. The country was close to China, who participated in the 1955 Bandung Conference, a meeting held in Indonesia by mostly newly-independent Asian and African states.
Trotier writes that the Asian Games were not only meant to support Sukarno’s ideology and nation-building policy, it also “became a political message of anti-Western sentiments.”
Victor Cha, an American academic and former national policy advisor under US president George W Bush, writes that “Sukarno quietly promised Beijing that Taiwan would not be there.” Israel was also excluded because of Indonesia’s ties with its enemies.
Of course, Indonesia couldn’t do this openly. Even though Taiwan received an invitation in February 1962, its delegation never received their visas. When Taiwan’s Asia Games director Hao Keng-sheng (郝更生) flew to Indonesia in August without a visa to figure out what was going on, he was denied entry. When Indonesia officially announced Taiwan’s exclusion on Aug. 24, it blamed the decision on Hao for trying to illegally enter the country — though it was clear that it was due to “communist bandit meddling.”
The games went on as usual, and although Indonesia was suspended from the IOC, it was reinstated in April 1964 by apologizing and agreeing to abide by IOC rules.
BROTHERLY SPLIT
In the afternoon of Aug. 24, 1992, the staff of the Taiwanese embassy in Seoul held a ceremony to lower the Republic of China flag. The decision was abrupt — only a day earlier did China and South Korea “strongly suggest” that they were about to establish relations in the following few days, with Taiwan breaking off ties with South Korea in response.
“For decades, China’s ties with North Korea, and Taiwan’s relations with South Korea, were built on ideological similarities. But now, the new ties seem to be dominated by pragmatism,” the New York Times reported, citing economic factors for the switch. In 1991, trade between South Korea and Taiwan was at about US$3 billion, while the number was almost double for that with China.
In the year before ties were severed, South Korea was discouraging Taiwan from “selling consulates and the land under its embassy,” which was worth an estimated US$1.9 billion, promising that it wouldn’t jump ship, according to the New York Times. These assets were all transferred to China.
Taiwan announced that it would suspend all direct flights from South Korea and end all economic incentives. News programs aired footage of angry Taiwanese holding signs that read: “Brotherly nations? Bullshit!” and burning South Korean flags.
Rick Chu (朱立熙), a Korean expert and former Taipei Times editor-in-chief, writes in the introduction of his book Goodbye Arirang (再見阿里郎) that the severing of ties with South Korea was unprecedentedly swift, but not unexpected.
Chu writes that he spoke to a Chinese official in New York who told him that although China had already planned to establish ties with South Korea, “the Taiwan factor” hastened that realization.
“Because of Taiwan’s divisionism and diplomatic maneuvering, China felt that they needed to act as soon as possible to cut off Taiwan’s final ‘root’ in Asia,” the official says, pointing to the June 1992 reestablishment of relations between Taiwan and Niger, which only lasted for four years.
Chu writes that since the 1980s, every ambassador to South Korea knew that the “death date was close,” and took on a policy of trying to drag things out for as long as possible despite strong indication that South Korea was cozying up to China.
“Although our citizens are slightly surprised because it happened sooner than expected, and also angry, it seems that everyone also feels that a weight had been lifted off our shoulders. We finally don’t have to stoop to compromise, and give South Korea whatever it wants,” he writes.
“The problem is, what’s our next step? If one day, Taiwan’s allies dip to the single digits, what should we do?”
Chu asks in 1993 the same questions we are pondering today. And we still do not have answers as China’s power and influence continues to increase.
Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that have anniversaries this week.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS