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EXAMINER Special Report: My recent encounter with Taiwan's 'political purgatory'
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Michael Richardson on America's unfinished business in Taiwan Hsin Huang photo
My Examiner articles on Taiwan brought me two speaking invitations in California, one in San Jose covering the Bay area and one in Los Angeles. My Taiwanese hosts allowed me to pick my own topic. I chose to lecture on "America's Unfinished Business" where I discussed the failure of twelve American presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama to provide the people of Taiwan with self-determination following the World War II surrender of Japan to the United States.
My audiences in both cities were well informed, attentive and grateful for my remarks. I received rousing ovations and gifts at both talks. But the warm afterglow following my speeches was shattered by two stories of Taiwan's 'political purgatory', stories of murder gone unpunished.
I call the longstanding 'Taiwan question' by the same phrase used by U.S. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown to describe Taiwan's unresolved national status--political purgatory. Following World War II, the people of Taiwan, who had been under colonial rule of Japan, looked to the United States for self-determination. Instead, America imposed a harsh and cruel occupation government led by Nationalist China's Chiang Kai-shek on the island.
In April, Judge Brown declared Taiwan to be in a state of purgatory and urged President Barack Obama to act "expeditiously" to resolve the matter in a lawsuit, Roger Lin vs. United States, brought to clarify U.S. responsibility to the people of Taiwan under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Following my talk in San Jose, I was posing for pictures when my wife tugged at my elbow. "There is a woman here you need to talk to," Mary said guiding me to a tall, older woman wearing sunglasses.
As the woman spoke in a clear but trembling voice, the rest of the room fell away and I was transfixed by the story of horror she related. The woman was 12 years-old when the '228 Massacre' took place in 1947. Her 14 year-old cousin disappeared after Republic of China troops raided the area where he lived. For two weeks, the family searched for the missing boy. Finally, they found him when his foot was spotted sticking out from under a railroad bridge.
The missing cousin had been shot in the forehead. As the woman fell to silence Mary and I both shivered, chilled by the sad, harrowing tale. This story put a human face on the purgatory imposed Taiwan by the United States after World War II.
The next day in Los Angeles, I gave a repeat lecture to a similar audience. My remarks were again well received with more gifts and pictures. But the euphoria of the moment would again be shattered as I confronted Taiwan's political purgatory with a second survivor's tragic account.
After the talk and everyone went home, I was later approached by Thomas Liu with the sad story of his 22 year-old brother, Lau Thian-hok, a music student murdered during the 'White Terror' campaign of the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek. The murdered brother had been arrested with three of his music classmates. Thomas shared with me a grainy black and white photo of his brother, hands tied behind his back, taken shortly before he was executed.
Taiwan's political purgatory is indeed America's unfinished business.
For more info: www.taiwanmultimedia.com/film/FNLSA20090606.wmv
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