Seeking a New Image

Through all the postwar upheavals and changes in Asia, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has endured. Now 81 years old, and an exile for the past 20 years on the island of Taiwan, he is a living anachronism. Chiang is still widely recognized--at least in formal diplomatic terms-- as the representative of all China. Yet even that is beginning to change, as some Western nations stir toward explicit acknowledgment of Mao Tse-tung's rule of the mainland. Italy put out feelers toward possible Peking diplomatic ties earlier this year. Canada announced last week that it planned to hold formal recognition talks with the Communists in Stockholm, starting next month.

In the face of these new challenges, Chiang Kai-shek needs a thriving, successful Taiwan. The Nationalists have achieved at least part of that by using thorough land reform and well-paced industrialization to shape some impressive social and economic growth. But the island's internal political evolution has not kept pace, and frequent promises of domestic reform have somehow never materialized. Last week the Kuomintang, Chiang's crusty 50-year-old ruling party, was talking self-improvement once more.

An August 75. Surrounded by 600-odd party leaders at the Kuomintang's Tenth National Congress, Chiang himself sounded the keynote for "overall reform." The President, although as lean and ascetic as ever, must by now know that his dream of a return to the mainland is a hopeless chimera. Indeed, for the past two years the Generalissimo has told his people that the struggle against Mao's regime must be political rather than military. In such a contest he obviously needs a revitalized, rejuvenated party, one that not only presents an attractive image abroad but that can also bridge the gap between the 2,000,000 mainlanders on the island and the 11 million native Taiwanese.

While the Kuomintang has been successful in recruiting many Taiwanese in recent years, its leadership remains almost exclusively in the hands of aging mainlanders. Despite good intentions, the party congress did not appreciably change that pattern. The newly elected central committee includes twoscore fresh faces, but among its 150 full and alternate members, only 13 are Taiwanese. A new party advisory committee for the Gimo, who is also director-general of the Kuomintang, seats only one Taiwanese among its eleven members; the average age of that body is an august 75. The central committee list is headed by Defense Minister Chiang Chingkuo, 59, the Gimo's oldest son and his probable successor.

Recognition Cycle. The congress could hardly have been held at a more critical time. Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution appears to have drawn to a close, and it is possible that Peking may return to more flexible foreign policies that could undermine Taiwan's international position. Taipei realizes that Washington would like nothing better than a relaxation of tensions with Peking. Besides, a more rational Chinese Communist view of the world would persuade more nations not only to recognize Mao's regime but also to swell the annual vote in favor of Peking's admission to the U.N. The new cycle of Western approaches to Peking on recognition initiated by Italy and Canada underscores that possibility.

For the present, the Nationalists as well as the Communists reject what is known as the "two-China" solution, in which each of them is recognized for what it is: the ruler of Taiwan on the one hand, and of mainland China on the other. Each insists that the other must be regarded as fraudulent. Thus, Taiwan will undoubtedly break relations with Ottawa if the Canadians recognize Peking. To make certain that Taiwan's hard line is still clearly understood everywhere, the congress last week concluded with a warning that the Kuomintang and the Taiwan government "resolutely oppose any moves that lead to appeasing the Maoist regime."

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