Ep. 321 | The History of Taiwan (Part 12)
The China History Podcast
Laszlo Montgomery
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Another barnburner of an episode here in Part 12. The 1960s and 70s witnessed a lot of turbulence in Taiwan. Following the Sino-Soviet Split, Chiang Kai-shek had a funny feeling his U.S. ally was going to try to make hay of this opportunity. Facing an uncertain future Chiang front-burner'd economic reform. As things gather steam throughout the 1970s, a middle class emerges and grows. Taiwan was moving full speed ahead in the direction of becoming one of the Four Asian Tiger economies. Chiang knew the knock on the door was coming sooner or later. December 1969 he is told by the US ambassador the US will end things with the ROC in favor of recognizing the PRC. That created a very complicated and sensitive situation. The KMT starts grooming more native Taiwanese and carries out aggressive outreach. And we'll close off with the death of Chiang in April 1975.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back again, ladies and gentlemen, to another China History Podcast episode. |
| 0:06.5 | Lauslo Montgomery here with Part 12, this, well longer than I expected, history of Taiwan |
| 0:12.0 | series. |
| 0:13.0 | I was sure this one would only go to ten. |
| 0:16.2 | Over the last two or three episodes, we saw how everyone on Taiwan and the offshore |
| 0:20.8 | islands remained on a wartime footing from the time of the Great Retreat and all throughout |
| 0:25.4 | the 1950s. |
| 0:27.4 | It was a very stressful decade in the Taiwan Strait, particularly on those offshore |
| 0:32.6 | islands, and there were plenty of battle deaths to attest to that. |
| 0:36.6 | I didn't mention this last time, but between the two Taiwan Strait crises of 1954-55 |
| 0:43.0 | and 1958, there were around 1,000 soldiers killed on the nationalist side and 850 or so |
| 0:51.1 | on the PLA side, not to mention all the ships that were sunk, jet fighters shot down, and |
| 0:58.0 | who knows how many thousands of injuries on both sides. |
| 1:03.3 | Let me reiterate, when people refer to last August 2022 as the so-called fourth Taiwan |
| 1:09.1 | Strait Crisis, it hardly rose to the levels of the first and especially the second |
| 1:14.6 | ones of the 1950s. |
| 1:16.6 | We haven't gotten to the third one yet. |
| 1:19.4 | In December 1963, Chuncheng stepped down as premier. |
| 1:23.6 | He was stricken with cancer and would pass in 1965. |
| 1:28.3 | Throughout the 1960s, Jiang Jinguo would stand in for the Generalissimo for military and |
| 1:35.2 | party matters. |
| 1:36.2 | He didn't have the title yet, but he was treated as the heir apparent. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Laszlo Montgomery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Laszlo Montgomery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.