Modern Democracy Episodes

Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s two expeditions of 1852–1854 pried open Japan. Less well known is that one of the American ships visited Keelung in northeastern Taiwan to investigate the harbor and its coal resources. And completely forgotten is another American project, the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition of 1853 to 1856, which saw two visits to Taiwan. At that time, the United States was one of several Western powers which had an eye on establishing a foothold on Formosa’s wild East Coast. The mysterious region lay outside of Chinese control and promised all sorts of possible utility, whether as a coaling station or a penal colony. In today’s podcast we’re aboard the John Hancock in the company of Lt. Alexander Habersham, who wrote an account of the expedition.

We've gotten so many questions from Formosa Files listeners about the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that we thought we'd do a round-up of previous attempts, fill in some history from 1949 to 2014 or so, and tell you why invading Taiwan isn't an easy mission... for the PLA of China, or any military, for that matter.

The Korean War would almost certainly have ended much earlier but for the tricky question of what to do with Chinese POWs. The 21,000 Red Chinese soldiers captured were finally given a choice: go home to China...or go to "Free China" on Taiwan, the ROC. The choices made by these captives were not, however, free from influence. Every side in the conflict had an angle that would benefit themselves, and each tried to steer the POWs to making the "right choice." Some of this "steering" involved drastic measures such as forcibly tattooing political slogans -- or, worse, cutting such tattoos off. Here's the somewhat forgotten tale of why Taiwan once annually celebrated "123 Freedom Day."

April 1997. Taiwan’s crime story of the century starts with the kidnapping and murder of a celebrity’s 12-year-old daughter by a trio of hardened criminals. In the seven-month crime spree that follows, there are more kidnappings, killings, rapes, police manhunts and shoot-outs. The climax comes in November when Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興), the sole survivor of the trio, takes foreign hostages; South African military attaché to the ROC, McGill Alexander and his family are held at gunpoint at their Taipei home for twenty nightmarish hours.

Dr. Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) was a Taiwanese pro-independence/pro-democracy activist who lived an exceptional life - losing an arm in a WWII US air raid, witnessing the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and being arrested for sedition after returning to Taiwan -- to name just a few of the amazing parts of his life story. In part one of this tale, we delve into his background and take you up to the day of his arrest in Taipei in 1964. ----------- UPDATE: Shortly after recording this episode, it was announced that Dr. Peng had passed away in the early morning hours of April 8th, 2022, at the age of 98. We offer our heartfelt condolences to his family - and may he rest in peace. Whether one agrees with all his political views or not, it's undeniable that Dr. Peng Ming-min was a powerful advocate for and champion of Taiwanese democracy -- the freedoms we enjoy in Taiwan today were fought for by people such as Dr. Peng, for which we are sincerely grateful.

Two-thirds of this island is mountainous, and climbing the mountains -- or even just driving across them -- is an awesome experience. But, woe be to those that are unprepared... or, sadly, just unlucky. With many peaks over 3,000 meters, when things go wrong up there, they can go very wrong.

After the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, nations around the world began thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. Among them was China, then ruled by supreme leader Chiang Kai-shek. The Nationalists' retreat to Taiwan interrupted those early ambitions, but when the PRC successfully detonated a nuclear device in 1964, CKS stepped up efforts to develop nukes. This secret program continued after the death of Chiang Kai-shek in 1975 and came surprisingly close to success. Taiwan, however, would not end up joining the Atomic Club. Here's the story of how that happened:

In the 1980s, Japan's, South Korea's, and Taiwan’s massive fishing fleets gained notoriety for their destructive driftnet fishing. The use of giant driftnets, sometimes tens of kilometers long, threatened to turn the oceans into deserts. In 1989 the United States launched a high-seas sting operation, which culminated in a US coastguard cutter chasing a Taiwanese fishing boat carrying illegally-caught salmon for 2,700 miles across the Pacific. This operation would help bring an end to these “walls of death.”

The word "stalemate" defined relations between Taiwan and China in the 1970s and early 1980s. Neither side wanted to legitimize the other with "official" talks so ideas such as postal and travel links, as well as the most important - family reunions - went nowhere. But everything would change in 1986 when 王錫爵, a former ROC Airforce U2 spy plane pilot did the unthinkable - hijacking his China Airlines cargo plane and flying it to Guangzhou.

Only one Taiwanese person is known to have survived the famed Long March of Chinese communists led by "Chairman" Mao. Hear the story of Cai Xiaoqian (蔡孝乾) from modern-day Changhua County, who became Mao's spymaster in Taiwan... and whose work almost led to a successful invasion!

The Dutch put up a good fight... but a traitor seals their fate. Here's the end of the story of how the Dutch lost Taiwan.