FORMOSA: How to Make a Martyr

Since the Chinese Reds drove his armies from the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists have conscientiously tried to assume the trappings of liberal democracy. In Formosa the Nationalists paid new heed to China's 1946 constitution, which guarantees citizens a free press, free speech and free elections. They set up two "opposition" parties, whose candidates are sometimes allowed to beat out those of Chiang Kai-shek's ruling Kuomintang. But somehow, the vast majority of elective jobs are always won by the Kuomintang, and the opposition parties are careful not to oppose so vigorously as to endanger their Kuomintang subsidies.

The Lighthouse Builders. One of the most vocal critics of this state of affairs is bald, hulking Lei Chen, 63, publisher of Taipei's struggling (circ. 23,000) Free China Fortnightly. Lei, who joined Chiang's Kuomintang as a youth of 20, served as a Cabinet minister in several Nationalist governments, but was ousted from the party in 1954 either because he was implicated in smuggling (government version) or because he printed criticism of the government in his magazine (Lei's version). Since then, Lei and his editors have ceaselessly berated Nationalist China's "one-party dictatorship," have argued that a genuine two-party system would make the island "a lighthouse of freedom and democracy" for the millions of Red-ruled mainland Chinese.

Fortnight ago Lei formally established the China Democratic Party, put out a 1,500-word platform largely devoted to explaining that the new party agreed with most of the Kuomintang's goals. But what caught the suspicious eye of Kuomintang watchdogs was the fact that most of the members of the China Democratic Party's executive committee were native-born Formosans. To the mainland Chinese who run the Kuomintang, it seemed clear that Lei & Co. planned to capitalize on discontent among native Formosans, who make up 80% of the island's 10 million population, yet are all but excluded from the top ranks of the Nationalist government.

The Deaf Ear. One morning last week, security police bustled into Lei's suburban Taipei home and hauled the publisher off to face a military court on charges of sedition. Though the Nationalist government insisted that Lei had not been arrested for trying to organize an opposition, the cops (who are bossed by Chiang Kai-shek's son, Moscow-educated Lieut. General Chiang Ching-kuo) were careful to take with them membership lists of the China Democratic Party. Lei's crime, the authorities declared, had been to publish in his magazine articles "defaming the chief of state, creating a feeling of hostility between the government and the people, driving a wedge between the natives of Formosa and the mainlanders," etc. etc. As an afterthought, the government charged that two of Lei's magazine employees had been identified as "Communist spies."