Office of the Historian

276. Telegram From the Embassy in the Republic of China to the Department of State1

Taipei, July 31, 1967, 0915Z.

229. Subj: Country Team assessment of GRC intentions. Ref: State 135828; Taipei 3662.2

1.
This message discusses the problem of the GRC’s maritime incursions, and indicates briefly what they are and what they are not.
2.
The incursions are small-scale. We know of no GRC plans to mount any large-scale military or paramilitary operations now or in the near future, such operations are unlikely and beyond GRC capabilities. The last incursion of any size was the disastrous one of August 1965 in which the GRC lost two ships near Tungshan Island. Since that time there have been seven known incursions—in rubber rafts, M–5 class fiberglass speedboats, and an outboard-powered catamaran. These have generally comprised 6–10 people, the largest being a team of about 15 men in two speedboats used in the Shuntung raid on 29 May 1967.
3.
GRC intentions are small-scale. These relate to military intelligence, small-scale sabotage, occasional interdiction of fishing boats, infiltration of agents into mainland China, at least, psychological impact.
4.
Various GRC entities conduct incursions, including units from the Chinese Navy, Chinese Army, the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense and irregular forces from the anti-Communist National Salvation Army, (an aging group of some 5,000 irregulars primarily stationed on Tung Yin Island). The particular units used do not use MAP equipment in raids and are not MAAG-supported. There is however, some occasional U.S. support to certain GRC intelligence collecting efforts.
5.
There is no effective central GRC direction and coordination of these incursions. These incursions are often run without the coordination or foreknowledge of other GRC offices. There have even been cases where Defense Minister Chiang Ching-kuo has been unaware of the actual operation before the fact. We know that his present position remains somewhat ambivalent between the traditional GRC interest in “back to the mainland, “and the recent general GRC emphasis on political actions. Recently, the GRC has been attempting to make NSB and J/E MND responsible for coordinating small-scale maritime operations but it remains to be seen whether this coordination will be effective. In any case, [Page 592] in the main the incursions remain poorly coordinated and poorly executed.
6.
We know that there is a slightly heightened high-level GRC military interest of late in continuing various incursion attempts, and we must assume that they will so continue. We estimate that they will continue to use the available types of boats in incursion attempts. In addition, the GRC will have two midget submarines, each capable of landing up to six people, in operation at some future time and will probably commit them occasionally to such activities.
7.
Although GRC maritime incursions over the years have for the most part been unsuccessful, GRC leadership views them as psychologically necessary both for morale and propaganda purposes within Taiwan, and to give hope to remaining GRC adherents on the mainland.
8.
GRC news treatment of these incursions is for the most part misleading, in that public GRC accounts picture the operations as being large and more successful than they are in fact.
9.
Appropriate U.S. authority has had foreknowledge, but not control, of certain of these incursions; the GRC, nevertheless, has capability to launch such incursions without prior U.S. knowledge. Our knowledge after the fact is generally quite good, from special intelligence sources in particular.
10.
Such incursions are in part understandable not in empirical result, but because they are one of the few avenues of independent capability actually open to the GRC, a GRC dedicated to the return to the mainland which tries to prove to itself and to its subjects that its goal can be achieved. This situation exists notwithstanding the fact that the top GRC military knows full well that the military balance is constantly shifting, to the disadvantage of GRC, with reference not only to advanced weapons, but to the respective ChiCom and ChiNat conventional military potentials in Taiwan Strait area.
McConaughy
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 CHICOM-CHINAT. Secret; Limdis; Noforn. Repeated to Hong Kong and to CINCPAC for POLAD.↩
  2. See footnote 2, Document 242, and Document 266.↩