ABSTRACT
When Japan accepted the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allied powers on August 15, 1945, there were approximately 5.5 million Taiwanese who generally believed that they had been liberated by the Western Allies but not by the Nationalist Chinese under the Kuomintang (KMT). Then a US diplomatic corps headed by Consul General Leo Sturgeon, a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) team, American missionaries, and visitors on special missions or personal business subsequently arrived in Taiwan. In December 1948, following the defeat at the Battle of Huai-Hai and the rapid deterioration of the military situation in northern and central China, the Nationalist government requested that shipments of US material purchased under the grants be delivered to Taiwan. Endless antigovernment street protests and demonstrations, political hearsay and innuendo, which is crudely twisted and instantaneously transmuted by Taiwan's perverse media and poorly trained journalists, further inflame virulent ethnic tensions and polarize Taiwan's society.
