A black Packard with drawn shades stopped before the palaitial brick building that once housed Japan's governor general in Taipei, capital of Formosa. Behind it rolled a Buick convertible full of bodyguards. They stood aside watchfully as , Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek hurried inside the building to confer with his old military pupil, now Formosa's Nationalist governor, greying General Chen Cheng.
The Gimo looked fit and rested. He had gained eight pounds during "retirement." From his mountain hideout overlooking a black sand beach on Formosa's southern coast, he had come to give counsel and approval to plans for converting the island into a Nationalist redoubt. China's war had entered a phase of last-ditch peripheral resistance. In the far Northwest, Moslem Warlord Ma Pufang was using his hard-riding horsemen to harry the Communist inland flank (TIME, June 27). From Formosa the Gimo's remnant navy and air force, carrying on a blockade of sorts, were needling the Communist coastal flank.
In Washington, Formosa assumed an increasing prominence in discussions of future U.S. strategy in Asia. With the help of U.S. sea and air power it could be held against Communist attack. It flanked the line of a possible Communist advance across the South China Sea.
But Formosa had its drawbacks as an anti-Communist redoubt governed by Chinese Nationalists. Mostly these boiled down to the simple fact that 6½ million Formosans did not like the Chinese. Last week TIME Correspondent Wilson Fielder cabled this picture of the island in its new, unwanted role:
Good Old Days. Cool breezes drifted gently across the golden grain of rice paddies that step up the lush green tropical mountains ringing Formosa's capital. Farther south, water, buffaloes dragged plows for peak-capped farmers turning soil for one of their three yearly rice crops. Nearby lay fields thick with sugar cane and vegetables. At night, electric lights —rare in rural Asia—twinkled from the modest huts of tiny villages. By day many villagers not needed in the fields worked in the small industrial plants that dot the island. Compared to mainland Chinese, the Formosans were well off. Nevertheless they were grumbling. In guarded whispers they spoke of the "good old days" of Japanese rule. The years since V-J day had taken with them much of the sting of iron-fisted totalitarianism. The islanders now remembered how Japan had given , order to their lives, while China had brought them to the brink of chaos. The reason for their discontent was easy to see.
Along Taipei's broad, palm-shaded streets, sleek automobiles rushed rich mainland occupants to recently acquired business and government offices. Well-groomed Chinese women cluttered restaurants and shops, jammed sidewalk money-exchange booths, displaying rolls of crisp U.S. dollar notes. Thousands of Chinese soldiers, with the defeat of Shanghai just behind them, camped in the cavernous railroad station or roamed the streets. Civilians and soldiers (1,500,000 in number) were refugees from the communism now flooding south across China. They were also a troublesome burden to a people who wanted their island home for themselves.