Recalling your interest in having the facts about the U.S. presence on the
offshore islands, I took the opportunity while in Taipei to ask Art Hummel to have the Embassy put
together an inventory for our reference. The attached letter from Art and
its inclosure2 is the
result.
Attachment
U.S. ACTIVITIES ON THE OFFSHORE ISLANDS3
The most visible relationship of the U.S. with the Offshore islands is
the MAP support given almost all GRC troops stationed there. A small
[Page 586]
but significant economic aid
program has also been carried on in the Offshores, and USIS loans books and tapes to a GRC military reading room on Kinmen. In
addition, the U.S. and the GRC
participate in joint (secret) contingency planning for possible U.S.
participation in the defense of the islands. The GRC has actively sought to enliven the interest of
individual Americans in and out of government in the islands, especially
Kinmen, by encouraging their visits there. Top GRC officials may hope that these visits together with the
present (small-scale) U.S. involvement on the Offshore islands will
influence the U.S. to assist in their defense in the event of another
Communist attack.
1955 Conditional Commitment
The Congressional Resolution of January 1955 authorized the President to
use U.S. forces for the defense of Taiwan and the Penghus and for “the
securing and protection of such related positions and territories of
that area now in friendly hands and the taking of such other measures as
he judges to be required or appropriate in assuring the defense of
Formosa and the Pescadores.” The Executive view of defense of related
positions and territories was outlined in President Eisenhower’s message
to Congress asking the authority conveyed in the Resolution. Eisenhower
said he would act “only in situations which are recognizable as parts
of, or definite preliminaries to, an attack against the main positions
of Formosa and the Pescadores.”
The U.S. intent has since been publicly reaffirmed in high level
statements at least seven times during both the Eisenhower and Kennedy
Administrations, most notably during the 1958 Kinmen crisis and most
recently by President Kennedy in June 1962. In each instance we have
made clear that a U.S. defense of the Offshores would depend on our
evaluation of the ChiCom attack at
hand. Of significance, nonetheless, was the public development of the
doctrine in the 1958 crisis. Secretary Dulles, with the intensive
bombardment of Kinmen two weeks underway, warned Communist China in a
statement September 4 that the defense of the two island groups had
“increasingly become related to the defense of Taiwan.” President
Eisenhower in a radio-TV address a week later was more explicit: “If the
present bombardment and harassment of Quemoy should be converted into a
major assault, with which the local defenders could not cope, then we
would be compelled to face precisely the situation that Congress
visualized in 1955.”
U.S. Military Assistance and US–GRC Planning for Joint Defense of the
Offshores
The most important U.S. relationship with the Offshores is the MAP support extended to most of the GRC forces stationed in the Offshores and
U.S. participation in secret, joint contingency planning for US–GRC defense of the islands. MAP support was originally not given to
GRC
[Page 587]
forces in Kinmen and Matsu,
but was gradually extended as a result of MAP supported units on Taiwan being rotated to the islands.
Military assistance for these forces can also be viewed as preparation
for the contingency in which the U.S. might undertake to defend the
islands.
All 64,500 troops in the Kinmen complex (including five Forward Look
infantry divisions and supporting units and one Air Force anti-aircraft
regiment) are MAP supported. Of the
24,800 GRC troops in the Matsu complex,
21,800 (including one Forward Look and one light infantry division and
their supporting units along with one Air Force anti-aircraft regiment)
are MAP supported. The remaining 3,000
non-MAP supported troops in Matsu
are the para-military Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps. Thus,
about one-sixth of the 544,000 MAP
supported GRC forces are deployed on the Offshores. Altogether six of
the 14 Forward Look divisions plus supporting armor and artillery, the
GRC’s most modernized and combat
ready ground forces, are in the Offshores. The GRC’s allocation of nearly half of its best ground forces
to these islands is perhaps the clearest manifestation of the importance
it attaches to the Offshores. The figures in this paragraph are those
compiled by MAAG, which frequently
differ somewhat from those compiled by the Ministry of National Defense,
the source of the Embassy’s quarterly troop strength reports.
Advising the GRC commands in the
Offshores is a MAAG,team of five
officers and one enlisted man on Kinmen and a MAAG team of three officers and one enlisted man on Matsu,
although additional MAAG advisers are
frequently brought in temporarily to assist in more specialized
problems. (One MAAG adviser on Kinmen
[less than 1 line of source text not
declassified].) The U.S. presence at both locations is made
somewhat more prominent by the MAAG
teams’ flying the American flag.
Contingency U.S. participation in the defense of the two island groups is
provided for in Plan Rochester, the comprehensive plan for the joint
US–GRC defense of Taiwan and the
Penghus pursuant to the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty. The U.S. Taiwan
Defense Command first drafted the plan with the Ministry of National
Defense in 1955 and together with the Ministry has kept it updated. The
current plan’s premise for contingency employment of U.S. forces in the
defense of the Offshores envisages possible provision of U.S. naval and
air forces to supplement those of the GRC with the objective of gaining air and naval superiority
in the Strait. No deployment of U.S. ground forces to the islands is
contemplated by the contingency plan, the land defense being left to
GRC ground forces then in place.
Officers of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command who are engaged in joint
planning find their Chinese counterparts well aware of the conditional
nature of the 1955 Congressional Resolution. Many Chinese officers seem
convinced, however, that the Presidential determination has
[Page 588]
already been made for a number
of hypothecated contingencies, and they frequently try to sound out U.S.
officers concerning these assumed decisions. Some Chinese military
officers also argue that a future contingency would not be materially
different from the 1958 crisis, and that the U.S. response would
therefore be the same.
U.S. Economic Assistance in the Offshore Islands
U.S. economic assistance in the Offshores constitutes a small but still
significant part of the current U.S. involvement in the islands. Total
direct assistance has amounted over the years to about US$2.3 million,
which while comprising only a fractional 0.15% of the total US$1.5
billion of U.S. economic aid given the GRC, is on a per capita basis higher than that for Taiwan
proper. Direct U.S. aid for FY67 amounted
to about US$133,000, the bulk of which went to Kinmen. Almost half the
islands’ population is estimated to have been reached by these programs.
Assistance now is divided between two projects: first, PL480 agricultural surplus commodities
channeled through voluntary agencies, which came to about US$70,000 in
the current fiscal year but which is scheduled to be terminated after
FY68; and second, the school lunch
program totalling about US$63,000 for the current school year. (Financed
from SAFED GRC owned SAFED funds, and
administered by the GRC, the JCRR program in FY67 funnelled better than US$400,000 into irrigation,
reforestation, crop improvement, livestock, fishing and sanitation.)
Miscellaneous Activities in the Offshores
Two other minor items round out U.S. activities on Kinmen and Matsu.
USIS about a year ago began loaning
to a small Chinese military reading room on Kinmen a limited quantity of
books (about 300), rec-ords, and films along with a tape recorder and
projector. Secondly, TOEFEL tests (the English language test required of
Chinese students headed for study in the States) have since last year
been administered several times a year by a consular officer who visits
the islands for this purpose. Only a small number of students have taken
the tests there.
Visits to the Offshores
For a number of years the GRC has
actively encouraged a wide range of Americans, official and unofficial,
to visit Kinmen (similar visits to Matsu, to which access is more
difficult, are infrequent). The GRC’s
probable purpose is to try to enliven U.S. interest in the Offshores and
create an identification with them which would strengthen the sense of
U.S. commitment to their defense. The Kinmen visits are intended to
impress Americans in the short space of a day with the formidable
defense works and the economic development program the GRC has brought into being on Communist
China’s doorstep. News coverage which frequently follows the visits
tends to add to the impression of U.S. identification with the
Offshores.
