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Last Chance. The island has two good armies totaling 40,000 men. Their commander is handsome General Sun Li-jen. A V.M.I, graduate, veteran of Burma and Manchuria, General Sun has been in charge of Nationalist ground forces training at a base on the southern tip of the island. After Shanghai's fall three additional armies were transferred to Formosa. Including naval and air units, upwards of 350,000 Nationalist troops are living on the islanders. Many are quartered in village schools and local folk are forced to contribute to their support. The new troops have behaved badly. Their vehicles, racing madly through the streets, have killed civilians. There are reports of rape and other crimes.
General Sun spoke frankly last week of his problems. "The behavior of incoming troops is defeating our patient previous work in gradually winning the confidence of the people by en] forcing Western standards of discipline." Governor Chen Cheng has come to Sun's support. Recently he ordered the execution of one army truckdriver on the spot where the driver had killed a pedestrian. He dismissed the driver's regimental commander.
There are other signs of Nationalist reform. A land rent measure is under way to raise tenants' share of the harvest from 50% to 62.5%. In an effort to halt spiraling inflation, the island's currency has been pegged to the U.S. dollar; this has not been effective, even though the Nationalists have a substantial gold hoard. Formosans have no confidence in the Nationalist government: they say gold shifted from the mainland to Formosa could just as easily be shifted out again.
If Formosans, Chinese Nationalists and the U.S. cannot find a solution for Formosa, the Communists certainly will. Said one foreign resident last week: "I feel sorry for the islanders. Mainland Chinese are used to fending for themselves, come what may. Under Japanese totalitarianism, the government looked after the Formosans . . . The police even checked to see if their homes were clean. The islanders expected the Chinese government to do the same. Now they are lost."