Temples, Rebuilt and Abandoned: A Luermen (鹿耳門) Day Trip

When I was young, my parents would take long Sunday drives, often stopping off at areas of historical significance. Dad was interested in wars and their associated geography; Mom, old houses and mansions. I was bored witless. I had no appreciation for that kind of history in my youth, and while the old houses could sometimes be intriguing — I’ve always been into cool structures and antique objects — the geographical locations themselves were generally quite bland. It honestly did not matter to me that “George Washington had a meeting here”. 

Taiwan, however, has kindled some interest in historical locations for their own sake. 

Enter Luermen (鹿耳門), where Cheng Cheng-kung/Koxinga (鄭成功/國姓爺) first landed in Taiwan. I’d been interested in the area since reading Tonio Andrade’s Lost Colony despite knowing that there was no longer a “landing site” per se, as the entire area had silted in through the intervening three centuries. 

I hadn’t prioritized a trip to the area in part because bus service is spotty: you can take a bus out to the park at the Koxinga landing site from Tainan City, but there isn’t much there other than a decrepit park, and the trip will take you between 1.5-3.5 hours despite it being just 15 kilometers northwest of central Tainan — about a half-hour drive. There are other things to see but they either require walking, or are simply too far away. I’d also heard that there just wasn’t a lot going on there, hardly worth organizing an excursion. 

We went with a local friend from Tainan, whose ancestors came to China with Cheng Cheng-kung and, having recently moved back to Tainan, was interested in finding the spot for her own heritage-related reasons. It certainly helped that she speaks fluent Taiwanese as you won’t find many people who prefer Mandarin in these parts. 

While it’s true that there’s “not a lot going on” in this corner of Tainan, if you have access to a car and some free time, I actually recommend taking a trip out that way. From temples of historical significance to a truly isolated beach and some cool old houses within driving distance, you can easily fill up a day out here. 

Oh yes, and you can visit what I believe to be Taiwan’s most scenic bathroom.

We began our journey at La Belle Maison in the back lanes of Anping, in a building that I’d rather confidently place as Art Deco/Streamline, though I didn’t ask. La Belle Maison is run by a friendly Frenchman and has excellent meals and coffee, luscious desserts (the tiramisu is the size of a baby’s head!) and is decorated in a sort of botanical-vintage style. See if you can find the partially-hidden Chiang Kai-shek bust. Then it was time to hit the road. 

Beishanwei Matsu Temple / Luermen Tianhou Palace (北汕尾媽祖宮/鹿耳門天后宮)

This temple was our first stop. At first I was impressed by the size of the place, but aesthetically it isn’t particularly unique: it has that late-70s red granite and orange roof look common to many temples across Taiwan. This rather boring facade hides a fair amount of history, however. 

Although it’s impossible to tell from the current structure, Beishanwei Matsu Temple was founded in 1661; the temple’s website states that this was done by Koxinga himself, as he had prayed to Matsu at that spot for a successful siege against the Dutch at his first arrival. Over time, the temple expanded with added gates and banyan trees, and in 1719, funds were donated to turn it into “Tianhou Palace” (天后宮). A flash flood in 1871 destroyed the temple, although the Matsu idol was saved. The idol itself is still ensconced in this temple and according to the website, is in fact the original, made of fine wood with emeralds set in her robe — not that one can get close enough to admire all this. 

The temple was rebuilt in 1977, which is why it looks as it does now. Nearby, attractive Luermen Mansion (鹿耳門公館) is a restored heritage building, though it appeared closed when we popped by. 

At the time Beishanwei Temple was located at the south end of Luermen Harbor, on a bit of land that sure does look like it was once a tail (尾) stretching into the water. I'm not sure of the reason for using "shan" (汕) in the place name, but this post names the area Bexianwei 北線尾 or "north thread tail", which makes sense if you look at the included map. Don't quote me on any etymology, though. I also think this is the island Andrade calls "Baxemboy", as that sounds like it would be about right in Minnanyu -- but don't quote me on that either. 

There had been a small Dutch fort on Beishanwei guarding Luermen (鹿耳門 the Deers' Ear Gap), but it had been destroyed in a massive 1656 typhoon. I don't know exactly where it was, but it couldn't have been far from where the Matsu temple now stands. The destruction of that fort is one reason Koxinga was able to sail through.

In addition to slow sedimentation in the years after Koxinga drove out the Dutch, a flash flood caused by a typhoon in 1823 silted in much of the Taijiang “Inner Sea” (台江內海). This was the wide, shallow body of water separated from the Taiwan Strait by a series of sandbars, called the seven "kunshen" (鯤鯓) which now form several place names along the coast. That sea once stretched from the front of Chikan Tower in central Tainan to Xigang 西港 in the north, down to the northern edge of Kaohsiung County. Roughly, anyway: the sandbars and edges of the inland bay shifted frequently due to storms, floods and sedimentation.

I haven't seen a place name like this before and thought it might perhaps be derived from an Indigenous language, as with Chikan Tower (赤崁樓), named after the Siraya village of Saccam that once existed in the area, and some people are quite upset by the characters chosen to depict it. It's not, however: a kun 鯤 is a mythical sea monster or massive fish, like a whale, and a shen 鯓 is its back rising out of the sea.

Due to these geographical changes, the Taijiang area went from being navigable -- albeit dangerous -- by sea to being slowly silted up, with the old "sea monster's back" forming the coast. Now Beishanwei Matsu Temple is surrounded by dry land, shallow waterways and fish farms. 

There is another reason to stop at Beishanwei Matsu Temple: if you want to make a wish on a wooden plaque as close as possible to an area of great historical significance, this is the closest you’re going to get as the other nearby Matsu temple doesn’t have wishing plaques. I always wish for Taiwan independence (台灣獨立) and although I’m an atheist, it felt significant to make that particular wish at a temple founded by a man who was not the “hero” the ROC wants to portray him as, but still historically important to Taiwan. 

Luermen Matsu Temple （正統鹿耳門聖母廟)

This “orthodox” (正統) Matsu temple a few kilometers north of the Beishanwei Matsu Temple has a confusingly similar name, but the Chinese names help differentiate them. This is the closest temple to the actual Koxinga landing site.

People working/hanging out there (it’s hard to tell with temples sometimes) told us that Koxinga had passed by this spot on the way to the site of his first proper ‘landing’ and again prayed to Matsu. A related website also states that in 1661, Koxinga funded the reconstruction of the temple that once stood here as he prayed in this spot as well.

Temple rivalries are fairly common, so it could be that these temples disagree on which one the story relates to. However, it’s not inconceivable that he prayed at both places and ordered the founding of two Matsu temples in the same year to thank the sea goddess for her help in his victory over the Dutch. 

This temple was destroyed in 1831 by yet another Zengwen River flood, and its Matsu idols relocated to the Sanjiao Hai’an Temple (三郊海安宮) and Water Fairy Temple (水仙宮), both still in existence (the former seems to have undergone its own 20th century renovation, the latter still boasts an older structure, in the middle of a bustling market). It’s not clear if the idols are still in those temples or have been re-ensconced in the rebuilt Luermen Matsu Temple.

The site lay dormant until 1913, when a King Boat from Quanzhou’s Fumei Temple — the same type as the one they burn to Wang Ye in Donggang every three years — was found drifting near the site. Apparently, was pushed out to sea several times and floated back each time. People felt this was a good reason to rebuild the temple, although that structure doesn't seem to exist anymore, either. The current structure dates from 1981. 

According to this blog, that same boat can be found on display at the temple, but we didn't see it (that place is huge and we didn't know it was there).

So why visit? In addition to having reported historical ties to Koxinga, this temple boasts of being the “largest Matsu temple in the world”, though other sources merely state it's the largest in Taiwan. It is indeed massive, dwarfing the Beishanwei Matsu Temple, which is itself quite large. There’s also a bustling night market that sets up here, and two massive statues of Matsu’s guardians, Thousand Mile Eyes (千里眼) and Ears Hearing on the Wind (順風耳), which are apparently the largest statues of their type in the world.

Cheng Cheng-kung Memorial Park (鄭成功紀念公園)

A short drive from the Luermen Matsu Temple, you’ll come to what might well be the most underwhelming part of a day driving around the area: the actual landing site of Cheng Chenggong. There is a park here, with a cute vintage-y arch and a stone monolith. It’s poorly-maintained and usually empty; the only people you’re likely to encounter in the park itself are the folks watering the plants. There is a restroom here, but no promises on how well it actually works. 

It's worth revisiting the story of Koxinga's landing, as most summaries don't do it justice. To face the Dutch, Koxinga needed to get into Taijiang. But with Fort Zeelandia guarding the deeper channel into the Taijiang Inner Sea, Luermen was the only suitable alternative. The channel was far more shallow and full of shifting sandbars. Andrade notes that maps differed quite a bit, in part because the geography kept changing, but some clearly show a set of islands in this area that do indeed look like two deers' ears. 

Koxinga did not just successfully navigate this treacherous channel, he used strategy to do it. He braved foggy rain on the way from Penghu in order to reach the area by the new moon, when tides would be high. That higher tide allowed his deep-cutting ships to pass through an area that would have otherwise destroyed his fleet.

Anyway, back to the park.

Enjoy the middle-of-nowhere decrepitude for awhile, and meditate on how this spot used to be on the water — now completely silted in and well inland. Then, poke around behind the park, where a small road (which turns off just before you reach the park and runs behind it as a country lane) reveals a few rundown houses on the edge of yet another milkfish farm. A friendly guy who once trained in Hawai’i as an athlete for Taiwan — I think he said he’d played rugby — owns the small house back here, inherited from his parents. He doesn’t live there full time (honestly nobody would want to), but he sometimes pops around on the weekends to hang out and tend to his garden. He told us he always enjoys making new friends, and gave us some passionfruit from his garden. 

He also let us know about Luermen’s best-kept secret, a wide, clean beach at the end of a mangrove estuary, which you’ll probably have all to yourself. While you can take a bus out to the temples and park above, at this point driving is necessary.

The quiet beach

Here’s how to get there: drive towards the coast on the main road (Chengxi Street 城西街) that passes by the Memorial Park, to the very end. When you hit the T-junction, turn left. Keep going along the Zengwen River, do not turn back inland. Stop and walk up the concrete embankment to get a view of the river if you feel like it, though we didn’t. Take this embankment road all the way to the end, where there’s a small parking lot. In fact, it is possible to continue driving as the road you’ll be walking to the very end is passable by car and scooter, but it’s a pleasant walk through woods and mangroves. 

It’s perhaps another ten-minute walk to the beach; you’ll know it when you see it. You can continue along the path away from the beach, but we didn’t. 

When we went, the area was completely deserted and peaceful. We weren’t dressed for swimming or even going barefoot — I had socks and sneakers on — so we didn’t go in the water, but you absolutely could. Just be careful as there is literally no one around to save you if you get into trouble. It’s just you, the sand, the sun, the sea and lots of oyster shells. Perhaps a fisherman, but likely not even that. 

Nanching/Lady Tsai Temple (南清宮/蔡姑娘廟) and Taiwan’s most scenic bathroom

After the beach, it was time to take a pit stop. I have no idea how our friend found this small temple in the middle of miles of fish farms, but she did. We pulled up, asked about a bathroom — most temples have them — and were directed out back. 

I wish I’d stopped to ask the locals hanging out what the history of this temple was, but we were so focused on a bathroom that it slipped our minds. This website says that Lady Tsai would sail between Taiwan and Fujian in the jewelry business, and seeing all the corpses from shipwrecks in this area — remember, it was once a shallow harbor full of deadly sandbars — had a temple founded there, though it’s obviously been rebuilt many times since, and the current structure has a 1980s look to it. 

Anyway, I didn’t get a picture, but climb the stairs from the big metal structure in front of the temple to the raised dirt path out back, and enjoy the view across the fish farms! There’s even a picturesque palm tree swaying in the wind coming off the flat land transformed into a series of ponds and farms. The actual toilet is in a building with no view, but if you have the right parts, the open-air urinal will allow you to feel the country breeze on your cheeks (your other cheeks) as you relieve yourself. 

You're welcome! 

Abandoned Ji Gong Temple (Wansheng Temple) (萬聖宮/濟公廟)

On the road to the deserted beach, you’ll pass by an oddly-shaped temple structure topped with a huge Ji Gong statue. Ji Gong was a 12th century monk known for his tattered robes and proclivity for meat and wine, which got him kicked out of the monastery. He is commonly said to appear to spirit mediums, and has a strong presence in Yi Guan Dao (一貫道), a modern religious group with some fairly conservative strictures on practice. 

Curious, we pulled in just to see what the place was like. Though it’s not obvious from the road, it is indeed abandoned and locked tight, although one of the automatic lights at the entrance blinked on while we were there. I don’t know why this temple was abandoned, nor anything about it, but whatever happened, it occurred sometime after 2013, when a blogger was able to go inside and the temple still seemed to be active. 

The spot is quiet and slightly creepy, as the building itself appears to be in good condition but there’s nobody around. 

Heritage Houses (古厝)

From here, we looked into stopping at the black-faced spoonbill sanctuary, but the viewing platform closes in the late afternoon, and we wouldn’t have made it.

Instead, I keyed  “heritage homes” (古厝) into Google Maps and found a few that, while not in Luermen exactly, were within driving distance. My best guess for why Luermen lacks historic buildings? For the same reason the temples keep getting rebuilt: the area had once been a bay and was prone to rapid geographical change, flash flood, and sedimentation. I wouldn't have built a house there, either. 

I’ve gone "old house hunting" before; this is how I found the Liu Family House in Liucuo (the town’s name is literally Liu House, so it’s kind of a big deal), itself not far from Luermen. 

However, unlike the Liu Family House, which isn’t inhabited full-time, some of these other houses are, or at least the owners tend to be home on the weekend. The Liu house can be viewed from the road, so it’s worth stopping even if you can’t enter, whereas the houses we visited are set back from the road; to see them, you have to trespass on private property. 

The good news is that the owners of both houses we visited are friendly people all too willing to let some random historic house enthusiasts take a look at their courtyard (one even invited us into the family shrine). One family included a centenarian grandmother who was married in that same house at age 18 and her son — himself grandfather-age — watering the beautiful garden, and told us the inscription on the entranceway referenced the family’s original hometown in China some centuries ago. The other boasted gorgeous original paintings on wood; the ones on the outer doors are in dire need of restoration but it’s an expensive proposition. The painted panels in the family shrine are in far better condition, and the shrine itself boasts pristine original Majolica tiles. 

But, because people actually live in these residences, I don’t feel comfortable sharing exactly which ones I visited. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a trickle of visitors to people who will be hospitable if you drop by, but probably don’t want their lives interrupted that much. In any case, there are lots of options in the area: just find some near your chosen day trip route and go hunting. You don’t need me. 

I will, however, offer some photos: 

There is a lot we didn’t see on this trip. Historic houses and nature sanctuaries we didn’t get to and at least one seafood restaurant that looks excellent. There’s plenty to do in the area if you’re willing to go hunting. 

Because night fell while visiting the second historic house, we decided it was time to head back to Tainan. Our friend knew a good place in the East District near National Cheng-kung University called 鯤島xSoshow.

There's that sea monster 鯤 again: this should be a clue that KundaoxSoshow takes an interest in Taiwanese history, geography and agricultural products.

This restaurant specializes in traditional Taiwanese ingredients are used to make entirely new fusion-style dishes and boasts an excellent cocktail bar. I had a drink made with pomelo, tea, flower petals and gin, and another topped with egg white and served in a traditional steamed rice cake (碗粿) bowl — white with a cerulean rim, which could have passed for a steamed rice cake itself. It was delicious! 

Sovereignty is the Dream: A book review of “Forbidden Nation”

This is a good time to announce that Brendan and I have been slowly working through a project: we’ve each been reading a selection of the various history books on Taiwan with an eye to creating a collaborative post discussing all of them, both on their own merits and in relation to each other.  Look for that to be coming out sooner than you’d think. 

In the meantime, here’s a review of one of the seminal texts in general Taiwan history: Jonathan Manthorpe’s Forbidden Nation. 

When you open this book, two things are immediately apparent: first, that Forbidden Nation is not quite chronological. Rather, it frames the middle chapters with the saga of Chen Shui-bian’s re-election in 2004. It opens with Two Shots on Jinhua Road, which tells the story of Chen’s attempted assassination while campaigning with a flair that some might find overly dramatic, but which does engage the reader. The text then re-sets to pre-colonial Taiwan, working its way through the Dutch, Koxinga, the Qing, the Republic of Formosa, the Japanese, the KMT dictatorship and democratization, ending once again with Chen. 

Second, while parts of the narrative do a good job of looking at an issue from multiple perspectives, others read like a straight op-ed. Manthorpe is unapologetically pro-Taiwan and pro-independence, to the point that the very first sentence of the preface reads: "Taiwan is entering an era when the four-hundred-year-old dream of the islands 23 million people to be internationally recognized as sovereign masters of their own house will be won or lost."

I’m willing to accept this, but not because his editorial line reflects my own. Rather, after considering multiple factors, he comes to consistently pro-Taiwan conclusions that I agree are the most accurate depiction of reality. In what ways did the KMT screw up — you’ll be shocked to learn that it was most of them — and where were they successful? Was the Republic of Formosa an expression of Taiwanese identity or not? Did the Japanese treat Taiwan well or not? 

I don’t always agree with him; for example, I’m not sure that their land reform program was as unambiguously successful as he depicts it. But doesn’t give false neutrality or weak-kneed both-sidesism even a single second, and I appreciate that. 

Indeed, in the years since Forbidden Nation was published, Manthorpe was proven to be right. Sovereignty is indeed the greatest dream of Taiwan and now we have the numbers to prove it.

However, it’s far from a perfect text. Brendan noted in his review that the narrative centers non-Taiwanese: you learn more about Robert Swinhoe than Nylon Deng, who doesn’t appear at all. More about Koxinga than Lee Teng-hui (although Lee does get fairly in-depth treatment). More about Soong Mei-ling than Annette Lu. Chen Chu, as far as I remember, is absent completely whereas KMTers, mostly from China, get plenty of attention. There is a lot of discussion of how rebellions were put down, but not much on why the rebellions happened or the internal mechanics of the more notable ones. 

All in all, the narrative is more about the colonizers than the colonized, as though Taiwan is a place that has things done to it (which is indeed part of the historical narrative) and far less a nation that Taiwanese themselves built. Some threads aren’t carried through clearly; your average neophyte reader would never make the connection that Chen Shui-bian had ties to the Kaohsiung Incident, for example. I haven’t done a deeper textual analysis to find actual numbers, but there also aren’t many women mentioned, despite the ways that the women’s rights movement in Taiwan has converged and diverged with the Tangwai and Taiwan independence activism. There’s discussion of how long Taiwanese identity and the home-rule, democracy and independence movements have existed, but nothing on their internal mechanics. The White Lilies are erased entirely. 

The narrative is also very much a “Great Men” view of history. You get a lot of movers, shakers and leaders — most of them not Taiwanese — but no clear sense of how all of this affected everyday people, or how they lived. Indigenous Taiwan is especially short-changed: Manthorpe spends roughly 20 pages on pre-colonial Taiwan, not entirely focused on Indigenous people. Some of the chapter titles are questionable (I think Barbarian Territory is meant to be ironic, and I'm not sure what I think of Pirate Haven), and much of this section focuses on how outsiders -- more Great Men -- viewed Taiwan rather than what life was like here centuries ago. Manthorpe doesn't meaningfully engage with Indigenous perspectives later in the narrative, either.

This is both more than a lot of writers do and less than is necessary. 400 Years of Taiwan History and Taiwan: A Political History gloss over this period as quickly as possible, with the former stating provably incorrect points, such as the idea that struggling Hoklo and Indigenous worked together to fight the elites (nope). A History of Agonies is openly offensive toward Indigenous Taiwanese. A New Illustrated History of Taiwan offers a bit more, covering pre-Dutch Taiwan in about 50 pages. And yet a huge chunk of Forbidden Nation (about 50 pages out of that 250) is dedicated to Koxinga and his descendants. While interesting, I don’t think it merits cutting more modern and possibly more relevant figures from the narrative.

Despite these imperfections, Forbidden Nation does get some things right. Unlike some of the aforementioned texts, which are interesting in situ for the insight they share on a certain kind of outdated pro-independence thought process, Forbidden Nation can be recommended as something closer to a straight history, if that can be said of any text. It’s fairly short — about 250 pages, a length that isn’t too intimidating for anyone first approaching Taiwanese history. Both Taiwan: A New History and A New Illustrated History of Taiwan is that it’s fairly long, and that can be intimidating. The writing style is reasonably engaging, which elevates it above A Political History and A New History, both of which are fairly dry. 

It also hits a lot of the right “beats” — the crucial turning points and notions from Taiwan’s history that underpin its identity. If you want a newcomer to understand a few basic things about Taiwanese history which explain why and how Taiwan became what it is today, this book will provide that. A lot of the arguments those who advocate for Taiwan keep rehashing to people who have opinions not in line with robust historical interpretation (that’s a fancy way to say “anti-Taiwan trolls whose opinions are wrong”) originate in Manthorpe’s text. 

Let’s take a look at some of those “beats”. If I could create a bullet list of things I want people beginning to learn about Taiwan to understand, it would look roughly like this:

1.) China’s claim to Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory “since antiquity” is entirely false; they cared not at all for it and didn’t even want to keep it initially. 

2.) There is a strong argument for considering Qing control of Taiwan to be colonial. Labeling all rulers of Taiwan except those that come from China as “colonizers” but China as somehow not that plays into the ruse that Taiwan is essentially Chinese. 

3.) The Qing didn’t control all of Taiwan for most of their time here, and certainly didn’t do much to develop it.

4.) The 1895 Republic was a flawed endeavor at best, and not a clear expression of early pro-independence sentiment. However, the rebellions that took place throughout Qing rule indicate that Taiwanese identity and the desire for sovereignty had at least some pre-1947 roots. 

5.) The Japanese colonial era was not a halcyon era. It’s everything that came after it that causes older people to look back with nostalgia - how awful did the KMT have to be that Taiwanese would look back on the way Japan treated them and see that it was comparatively better?

6.) Taiwan was comparatively developed before the KMT showed up, and a lot of the “development” the KMT engaged in was really just cleaning up a mess they themselves made. 

7.) Chiang Kai-shek absolutely knew about 228 and was perfectly aware that his underlings were committing a massacre. He approved of it. 

8.) There were other post-war options for Taiwan; being absorbed by the ROC was rendered likely by the non-binding Cairo Declaration but not inevitable. 

9.) If you actually look at the series of treaties, communiques, assurances etc. both post-war and as the US was switching diplomatic recognition, you’ll see that there’s no basis to claim that Taiwan is legally a part of some inevitable “one China”.

10.) Taiwan was built by Taiwanese. However, if you want to credit outside assistance (the KMT counts as “outside”), then US protection (due to Korean War-related strategic interests) and US aid did more for Taiwan than anyone else.

11.) Taiwan’s path to democracy was painful. They’re not going to give it up and change such a fundamental aspect of their culture just because China wishes it so. It is quite simply never going to happen. (Manthorpe doesn’t say this explicitly but that’s what his narrative builds to). 

12.) And yes, the KMT can also be considered a colonial power in Taiwan. They have treated this country and its identity as just as disposable as the Qing.

...and that’s the thing. Forbidden Nation touches on all of this. It gives you what you need to understand that Taiwanese independence is not a radical notion, it’s a natural outgrowth of the country’s own history. It allows readers to realize that instead of asking how Taiwan could possibly avoid unification with China, we should be asking how it could ever possibly unify peacefully. It’s quite clear that it simply cannot, and will not. 

My final thought: Forbidden Nation is not for people who already have a deep knowledge of Taiwanese history. I learned a few new things, but generally speaking I knew all of the skeins of historical trends and events that, when uncoiled to their full length and woven together, create a picture of Taiwan which simply can’t be denied. If anything, I would have preferred if the parts covering modern Taiwanese history were fleshed out more, with notable local activists and marginalized groups (including women) given more space in the story. 

However, if a newcomer to Taiwan or someone interested in learning more about this country asks for a book recommendation, this will give them the fundamentals and will help defeat those “but isn’t the culture Chinese?” questions before they come up. Because I’m not a fan of the lens through which it tells Taiwan’s story — it can’t all be about Notable Men who usually aren’t Taiwanese! — I’d recommend that potential readers start with Forbidden Nation, but pick up A New Illustrated History of Taiwan afterwards. One for the historical “beats”, and the other to hear all the voices Manthorpe left out and get a clearer idea of what life was actually like in Taiwan throughout history. 

Chiang Kai-shek did not save Taiwan from the CCP: Part 2 - what did stop China from taking Taiwan?

This is from a post for some movie I've long forgotten the title of.

This is Part 2 of a longer post. For Part 1, which discusses the ways in which Chiang Kai-shek is actually to blame for CCP interest in Taiwan, click here. 

Because it explores historical factors that I don't think many people are aware of, that post didn't address the core of the bad argument I keep hearing -- that sure the KMT wasn't great, but it's thanks to them that Taiwan isn't a part of the People's Republic of China! 

The belief here actually comes from something else: an interpretation of historical events between approximately 1949 and 1955, which places the ROC as the main bulwark against CCP designs on Taiwan. There's even a pretty terrible News Lens op-ed from a few years ago -- it's so bad that I won't link to it, but I did respond at the time -- that called Chiang "the greatest single fighter of the Chinese Communist Party, bar none", which is funny to me, because they thoroughly defeated him, and in order to hold Taiwan against them, he needed US assistance. 

My main source, once again, is Hsiao-Ting Lin's Accidental State, but I'll also be drawing on other sources, including this article from the Journal of Northeast Asian Studies. I'll try to quote frequently from it for those who don't have access.

I also want to say here that anyone who really knows Taiwanese history is likely already aware of everything I'm about to say; nothing here will surprise you. Instead, this is a sort of self-service: instead of writing the same reply to such comments over and over again, I'm putting it all in one handy blog post that I (and you!) can just link to whenever it inevitably comes up. Again. 

Here's the summary: despite some victories by the Nationalists, we don't have Chiang or his government to thank for Taiwan being saved from incorporation into the People's Republic of China. In fact, it was mostly the US's efforts to contain the CCP that led to Taiwan staying out of PRC hands. This had nothing to do with any sort of sincere care for the ROC on the part of the US, and certainly had nothing at all to do with any sort of goodwill toward Taiwan. Although the Nationalists did score some victories toward the end of the civil war, the lasting repellent that kept the PRC out of Taiwan was (somewhat grudging) American assistance to the ROC, due to a US desire to secure a defense perimeter around the PRC and renewed desire to include Taiwan in that defensive corridor due to the outbreak of the Korean War. 

From the link (all emphasis mine):

If there had not been a Korean War, the Chinese Communists would probably have invaded Taiwan in 1950. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States began to reverse its hands-off policy toward the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan. The Korean War first compelled the United States to grant military aid to Taiwan and then put the island under U.S. protection. The war forestalled the deterioration of the ROC' s international status, but the legal status of Taiwan became undetermined in the eyes of U.S. policymakers....

Both attacks compelled the United States to go to war, and on both occasions this simultaneously saved the Kuomintang (KMT) from total defeat. One high-ranking KMT official even described the Korean War as the Sian incident in reverse - an unexpected twist of fate that saved the KMT from total annihilation. 2 Before the outbreak of the Korean War, KMT-controlled Taiwan (then called Formosa) fell outside the U.S. defense perimeter, and the Truman administration had assumed the final defeat of the KMT to be only a matter of time. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, President Harry S. Truman decided to neutralize Taiwan, both to protect it from communist invasion and to prevent the KMT from using it as a base to mount an assault on the mainland. The Korean War also forced President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson to resume their entanglement with the KMT. 

The details of how all this happened are a bit muddier. Accidental State asserts that the Allies considered many options at different points, including simply allowing the PRC to take Taiwan, a United Nations trusteeship that would help Taiwan transition from Japanese colonial rule and backing of Formosan home rule groups; in other words, post-war US support for the ROC was far shakier and more ambivalent than people seem to believe. Lin (Accidental State) agrees with Lin (article quoted above) that there was a period when Communist takeover of Taiwan was considered "inevitable", and the US was, for a time, prepared to just let that happen. Around 1949-1950, the US made it clear that it would not interfere in the Chinese civil war and that it considered Taiwan to be a part of China. To me, it seems US support was more ambivalent rather than outright dismissive in those years, an ambivalence which remained through 1952, but that might be a topic for a later post.

In Untying the Knot, Richard Bush dismisses this idea that the US ever seriously considered a "trusteeship": 

FDR had his own plans for the island, and allowing international trusteeship of the island and a plebiscite to elicit the wishes of its people was not one of them. In his vision for postwar peace and security, "four policemen" -- the United Sates, Britain, the Soviet Union and China -- would insist on disarmament by most other countries and enforce it through a system of military bases. 

In fact, the idea of UN trusteeship, while it was never of interest to FDR, was of great interest to others, including several Senators and Dean Rusk (who would eventually become Secretary of State) recommended removing Chiang and UN trusteeship for Taiwan to then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Acheson seems to have completely ignored Rusk's letter, and was planning to enlist Sun Liren in a plot to remove Chiang and put Taiwan under new administration, but it never came to be. By 1950 it was considered a bad idea to support an independent Taiwan for a variety of reasons that I mostly disagree with, including a lack of US control over the outcome. 

That whole thing makes the pro-democracy, pro-self-determination, anti-war, anti-Big Power military-enforced imperialism liberal in me want to barf, but hey, that's history for you. It also clarifies that the US has never, at any point, held a sincere interest in the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan. It was always about power. The only way in which I can sign onto that as acceptable is my belief that the PRC did need to be stopped, and still needs to be stopped today, and wagged fingers and disapproving looks were never (and are never) going to accomplish that. Sometimes that entails accepting realities that I really wish weren't...real. 

On everything else, though, he agrees with Lin and Lin: 

In the Truman administration in 1949, there was a consensus that a Communist takeover was both likely -- again because of the Nationalists' political and military ineptitude -- and detrimental to U.S. security interests....

North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950 saved Taiwan and the ROC. Washington -- afraid that the invasion of South Korea was part of a larger campaign by the communists to extend their control and wanting to end the ROC's continuing minor attacks against the mainland -- deployed the 7th fleet to the Taiwan Strait to prevent the PRC and ROC from attacking each other. The net effect, however, was to ensure Chiang's survival. The ROC is was able to retain its seat in the United Nations and diplomatic relations with a majority of the world's countries [for the time being]. The Truman administration justified its policy reversal by saying that because there had been no peace treaty with Japan to dispose of "ownership" of Taiwan, its legal status (whether it was indeed part of China) had not been determined; thus its security was an international issue, not a purely domestic one.

You don't actually care about Taiwan for Taiwan's sake just as you've never cared about any other country for its own sake, and you never did, but Taiwan still needed the PRC stopped. So thanks, America! 

But also no thanks, because your previous ambivalence and lack of interest in home rule or international trusteeship is what precipitated the KMT occupation and subsequent military dictatorship and campaign of mass murder in the following decades. Yet you seemed fine with that. Yikes, America! 

Some might use that information to argue that for the brief period that it lacked strong US support, that the ROC did, in fact, "save" Taiwan by staving off the Communists without US help. 

And I can't deny that they won a few victories (Guningtou being the most prominent one that I'm aware of) in that time period. They were, according to Accidental State, "at least able to stop and search ships flying the flags of either Nationalist China or the PRC in the territorial waters surrounding Taiwan and the other Nationals-controlled isles to prevent military supplies from reaching Communist-held ports" and they had a "weak but still-functional naval capacity". (Why they would also search ships flying the Nationalist flag is unclear to me, but also irrelevant here.) 

But, the Communists were exhausted -- I can't find the source but I've read somewhere that the PRC attack on Guningtou was carried out by a rather ragtag group of falling-apart junks, they had insufficient supplies, and the main reason the ROC won was because one of their ships was in Kinmen awaiting a delivery of foodstuffs that they were going to smuggle to China. Indeed, they were still putting down "bandits" across China, and not only is the Taiwan Strait in fact ridiculously hard to navigate but also Taiwan itself is difficult to land on as an invading force. So, sure, we can give some credit where it's due, but there was a lot of luck involved, too. 

Let's not forget, however, that not only did the ROC's claim to Taiwan precipitate the Communists' interest in the first place, but their landing here also likely redoubled CCP desire to take Taiwan. From Bush:

Ever since the Cairo Declaration of December 1943, Mao Zedong and his revolutionary colleagues had set their sights on seizing the island as well as the mainland, and Taiwan became part of their mission of national recovery and unification. That their civil war rivals, whom they termed the "Chiang Kai-shek reactionary clique" planned to mount a last ditch stand on Taiwan was all the more reason to take the island. 

In fact, those years when one might argue that the KMT bravely and successfully fought off the PRC looked very different from the perspective of Chiang and his minions. Accidental State describes Chiang's attitude at this time as: 

so disheartened that, at one point in early June [1950], he seemed to truly believe it was no longer possible for him to find a living space in this world. In his personal diary around this time, Chiang, despite a despairing situation, still hoped against hope to fight against the "dark forces" for his very survival to the last...Adopting the posture of apparent self-abegnation that he had taken with President Truman, on June 15 Chiang passed the following message to MacArthur..."The Generalissimo, aware of teh danger of his position, is agreeable to accept American high command in every category and hopes to interest General MacArthur to accept this responsibility...soliciting his advice, guidance and direction."

Ha ha.

Sorry, I just hate Chiang Kai-shek so much that any despair of his, no matter how far in the past and even though he's dead and rotting at Cihu, gives me great joy.

Given that, what honestly matters more from a historical perspective is what forces helped keep the PRC away long-term. And, again, the answer to that is US strategic interests, not any sort of military genius or salvation by the ROC.

Lin goes on to call Chiang's solicitation of a mutual defense treaty with the US in the early 1950s as "desperate", and discusses in detail how Taipei anticipated that the outbreak of war in Korea would need to a US need to engage with them more proactively, and might even give them the necessary "in" to get the US involved in their desire to re-take China. They wanted nothing more than to be included in the US defense perimeter, their initial exclusion evoking the terror in Chiang outlined above. In 1950, Chiang even offered to send 33,000 troops to the Korean war effort, which the US rejected. From the linked article: 

President Truman objected to MacArthur's suggestion of a "military policy of aggression" and he had deliberately rejected President Chiang Kaishek's offer to send 33,000 Nationalist troops to assist South Korea because "it would be a little inconsistent to spend American money to protect an island while its natural defenders were somewhere else."

They did eventually get their wish: 

The People's Republic of China's (PRC) intervention in the Korean War struck the U.S. Eighth Army and X Corps a heavy blow in November 1950, and the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] began to question President Truman's military neutralization of Formosa. On November 20, 1950, the JCS sent the Department of Defense a memorandum, to which acting Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett concurred....

The JCS then emphasized "the strategic importance of Formosa" and suggested that "it would be desirable to have port facilities and airfield on Formosa available to the United States," if a full-scale war should develop against Communist China and the Soviet Union. The new Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, who was not as supportive of the KMT as his predecessor Louis Johnson, argued that Taiwan was "of no particular strategic importance" in U.S. hands, but it "would be of disastrous importance if it were held by an enemy."  In December 1950, Truman indicated to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee that Chiang Kai-shek intended to get the United States involved militarily on the Chinese mainland. Under pressure from the U.S. Senate, Truman stated the United States would not allow Formosa to fall into Communist hands. 

By January 1951, Taiwan had received military hardware worth US $29 million....Later that same month, the State Department instructed the U.S. embassy in Taipei to exchange notes with the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which led to a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (MDAA) between the two governments.  The MDAA was designed to legitimize the use of incoming U.S. military aid to Formosa for the island's internal security and self-defense.

The Korean War was so central to the continued existence of Taiwan that its end was considered a potential problem by the ROC:

If the Korean War was the salvation of the ROC, an armistice in Korea could naturally complicate the U.S.-Taiwan security relationship. On March 19, 1953, ROC Ambassador Wellington Koo explored the question of a U.S.- ROC mutual security pact, but received a cold response from Secretary of State Dulles. 4n In June 1953, Chiang Kai-shek wrote at least two letters to President Eisenhower probing the possibility of U.S.-initiated Asian multilateral mutual security pacts. 45 Although Eisenhower believed that a mutual security arrangement must come from the Asian nations themselves, by August 1953 the United States had concluded mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. 

The ROC government took the initiative and handed a draft U.S.-ROC mutual security pact to U.S. Ambassador Rankin on December 18, 1953. 

And if it wasn't clear that US aid to Taiwan at that time was aimed at helping the Nationalists defend an island they honestly could not hold on their own: 

On October 7, 1954, President Eisenhower revealed to Dulles that he had decided to conclude a security treaty with the ROC provided that Generalissimo Chiang was prepared to assume a defensive posture on Taiwan....

In January 1955 when the Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the ROC was pending ratification by the U.S. Congress, PRC forces attacked some small offshore positions, including the I-chiang and Tachen islands. At a NSC meeting on January 20, Dulles suggested the United States grant logistical support to the ROC to evaluate the Ta-chen islands and that President Eisenhower be authorized by Congress to use forces in the Taiwan Strait if necessary. On January 29, Congress voted favorably on the so-called Formosa Resolution authorizing Eisenhower to "employ the Armed Forces of the United States for protecting the security of Formosa, the Pescadores and related positions and territories of that area." The Formosa Resolution implicitly granted protection to Quemoy and Matsu.  

I reiterate: without US help, the Communists would have taken Taiwan -- and sooner rather than later -- an interest the CCP only cultivated in the first place because the ROC claimed it and then retreated there. Chiang Kai-shek was desperate and despondent.

He is not the hero of staving off the Communists that you think he is. He is not the hero of anything unless you think mass murder is great. 

This is also the situation which led to Taiwan's status being undetermined rather than agreed-upon as a part of China, a topic that also deserves its own post. It's worth remembering that even then-foreign minister to the ROC George Kung-chao Yeh knew that. The KMT later playing at Taiwan's status being clear in an attempt to close the door to independence is an absolute joke at odds with their own history.

In these and the following years, US aid to Taiwan spiked dramatically. Jacoby (U.S. Aid to Taiwan) first says military assistance between 1952 and 1965 reached a total of US$2.5 billion, but his later chart says $368 million. Though I'm not sure where the first number comes from, the exact number is less important than the fact that it was a lot. From Lin (the article, not the Accidental State author):

 

Without U.S. economic assistance in the early 1950s, Taiwan's economy might possibly have collapsed. In 1950 alone, retail prices in Taiwan rose 58 percent, from mid-1949 to 1951 wholesale prices rose 400 percent, and by early 1951, ROC-held gold and foreign exchange reserves were nearly exhausted....Approximately 80 percent of the national budget went to the military, so the island's economy could be sustained only with external assistance. An NSC report pointed out that "had it not been for increased MSA [Mutual Security Agency] aid during the fiscal years 1951 and 1952, a serious inflationary situation would have developed which might have well led to complete economic collapse.”

All of this aid was not meant just to bolster Taiwan's defense capability, but also to make the island more self-sufficient, a goal which was eventually reached.

Also -- oops, it looks like I just made an argument that US strategic interests, not brilliant economic planning on the part of the KMT, is what kickstarted the Taiwan Miracle. 

Let's not forget, however, that 1952-1965 more or less correlated with the White Terror years. So...thanks, America. But also yikes, America! 

I'm not trying to convince you here that the US is Taiwan's good friend. It's not -- yet again, a topic for an entirely different post. What I am trying to convince you of is simple: 

Like them, hate them or grudgingly tolerate them as the devil we can make a deal with because they're not the ones pointing missiles at us, the US had more to do with repelling a PRC takeover of this country than Chiang Kai-shek and his merry band of murderers ever did.