IS CHIANG
KAI-SHEK CONSIDERING A "BAY OF PIGS" EXPEDITION?
Are Chiang Kai-shek's forces now being groomed for an attack against China? The answer is "yes" according to Jin King in a dispatch from Taipei published in the March 21 issue of The Japan Times. To believe King, the former dictator is getting ready ‘for a "military showdown." As a result the island stronghold, which U.S. imperialism has been stockpiling with military hardware since the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, is stirring with unusual comings and goings.
"Newspapermen are coming to Taipei in droves from all over the world," reports King. "At last count there were 26 foreign correspondents -- all newcomers -- in Taipei, keeping a temporary vigil." These newspapermen are agreed on one thing, according to King. "Taiwan has undergone a subtle change in the past few months -- it is alive today with a new sense of urgency and expectancy generated by a burning desire to return to the mainland." A number of recent incidents have helped to build up the feeling that the day is fast nearing when China can be given back to Chiang. These include:
".-Nationwide air defense drills in the big population centers.
"-Reorganization of the island's first-aid stations.
"~-Realistic 'emergency' drills CHIANG--BUTCHER OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE carried out in Government-run schools throughout the island.
"--Recent visits to Taipei of South Korea's top military brass. Within the past four weeks, three top military leaders from Korea visited Taipei Defense Minister Sung Eun Kim; Lt. Gen. Ki Chung Kang, commandant of the Korean Marines, and Vic Adm. Yung Kuan Kim, commander in chief of the Korean Navy."
"Understandably," continues King, "the city is astir with what could be best described as rumors or unconfirmed reports. One of these is that Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek is spending his entire time alone in his mountain hideout in central Taiwan, mapping his ‘grand strategy' for a counterattack on the mainland.
"Another recurring story is that the much-awaited counterattack is scheduled to take place ‘sometime in the fall.'
"Government officials here are ready to admit that 'the time is ripe' for launching a counterattack against the Communists on the mainland, but no one knows when.
"Another development that has caused a spate of speculation is that the Nationalist Government has decided to convert some of the largest sugar plantations to rice paddies and vegetable gardens. Some believe this move is designed to produce more food in preparation for a military showdown with the mainland Communists.
"One thing appears certain in Taiwan: Free China is moving steadily toward a '‘make-or-break' military showdown with the Mao Tse-tung regime."
There has been nothing in the bourgeois press elsewhere that would indicate any decision in Washington to "unleash" Chiang. A landing by his faded, wornout troops under present circumstances would most certainly prove to be one of the greatest military fiascos of all time. The Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department are certainly not interested in presenting the world with another Bay of Pigs expedition.
However, besides a convenient nest for the rats in Chiang's entourage, Taiwan is an important military base in the long perimeter established by the Pentagon from Japan to Bangkok. When the American claim to the Western Pacific was staked out under the
Truman administration, Taiwan was described by the Washington war hawks of the time as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier."
Taiwan is thus an important link in any schemes for a war against China even if an invasion is not launched from there.
In addition to all this, a fresh buildup on Taiwan could be part of a war of nerves related to Johnson's continued escalation of the war in Vietnam. Its aim may be limited solely to trying to bluff Peking and Moscow into hesitating about increasing the flow of military aid to the beleaguered Vietnamese workers state.
If the Washington strategists believe, however, that the political crisis in China is now so deep and the Chinese-Soviet conflict so bitter that it is now feasible to mount an invasion headed by Chiang, it could have just the opposite effect from the one intended. Instead of causing the Chinese government to collapse like a house of cards, it could bring the contending factions together in face of the attack. And it could likewise impel Peking and Moscow to close ranks in a united front on the government level against the common foe.
The end result could thus well be a first-rate disaster for the U.S. not only in the Taiwan Straits but in Vietnam.
BOSCH PREDICTS U.S. WILL BE AT WAR WITH CHINA WITHIN TWO YEARS
Santo Domingo
Juan Bosch, former president of the Dominican Republic,