Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
11
Island: Taiwan since 1945
Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government assumed control over
Taiwan soon after the Japanese surrender in early September 1945,
and there was a brief euphoria and honeymoon period on the island
over its restoration to Chinese rule. The situation quickly soured, how-
ever, as the realities and difficulties of everyday governance of Taiwan
began to sink in for Nationalist Chinese and native Taiwanese alike. In
a nutshell, the problem was that native Taiwanese quickly came to see
mainland Chinese as oppressors, while mainlanders despised the
islanders for being culturally and linguistically Japanese and
suspected them of harboring fond memories of Japanese colonial rule.
Like its Communist alter ego on the mainland, Taiwan's KMT
government was, from 1949 to the mid-1980s, a dictatorship. Chiang
Kai-shek was no democrat, and he ruled Taiwan during this time with
terror, high-handed oppression, and tacit U.S. support. During the Cold
War Chiang was, in the estimation of the United States, preferable to
Mao and the Chinese Communists on the mainland. Soon after the
arrival of mainland troops in Taiwan, the island's population grew
