🪙 The Historical Truth of 1949: Chiang Kai-shek’s Transportation of Gold to Taiwan, the Monetary Foundation Supporting the New Taiwan Dollar and Post-war Construction
Do you believe it? The story of Chiang Kai-shek’s (style name Jieshi) gold is definitely different from your memory brainwashed by Taiwan independence advocates.
In those years, the total amount of gold transported by the former President Chiang from the mainland was between 112 and 187 metric tons. If you can’t imagine how much gold that is, let me tell you another fact: in the process of the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, the Japanese looted more than 6,000 metric tons of gold from Nanjing.
Perhaps at this moment you can better understand why Taiwan’s current industrial progress is far behind Japan’s (referring to the huge capital Japan accumulated through looting in World War II).
🇹🇼 Historical Gold of Taiwan and Mainland China
In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek, in his capacity as the Director-General of the Kuomintang, ordered that approximately 2.27 million taels of gold be transported from mainland China to Taiwan and delivered to the Bank of Taiwan for management on its behalf.
Caption: A small part of the gold transported from mainland China to Taiwan province after 1949.
Since the Bank of Taiwan had been completely hollowed out by the Japanese after the Japanese army’s defeat in 1945, leaving only a worthless empty shell for the Taiwanese people. In those years, the Bank of Taiwan relied on this batch of gold brought by President Chiang and US aid to sustain the New Taiwan Dollar from turning into today’s South Korean Won.
Caption: A batch of silver ingots being prepared for shipment.
In 1961, the Central Bank resumed operations in Taiwan, and the Bank of Taiwan transferred 1.08 million taels of gold to the Central Bank.
Editor’s Note: During the 12 years from being managed by the Bank of Taiwan to the transfer (1949-1961), it was the time when construction and money were most needed on the native land of Taiwan. A total of 1.19 million taels of gold were spent on social stability and initial construction.
This 1.08 million troy ounces of gold has always been Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserve since then and has never been used! It is still in the Wulai Treasury of the Central Bank.
Caption: The Shanghai wharf, the financial center of China, is in the process of rushing to transport supplies.
⚖️ Party-State’s Expediency in Turbulent Times
When Chiang Kai-shek transported the gold to Taiwan, he ordered it in his capacity as the Director-General of the Kuomintang. In essence, it was the Party helping the State, rather than the State helping the Party.
Editor’s Note: Although some netizens would criticize that this is the indiscrimination between the Party and the State, please think about the fact that this was needed in the turbulent era of war. Do not criticize the ancients with the peaceful today like a spoiled child. In war, who is still playing democracy with you? You are sure to lose.
Tsai Cheng-yuan once said that he does not believe Chiang Kai-shek used this batch of gold in his “private name” because it was also unnecessary. Chiang Ching-kuo did not take gold to speculate in land or in biotech software stocks.
Editor’s Supplement: Tsai Cheng-yuan, are you being sarcastic towards Tsai Ing-wen?!
Because Taiwan’s economy began to have a large trade surplus after Chiang Ching-kuo launched the Ten Major Construction Projects. After the Chiang Ching-kuo era, whenever there was too much trade surplus with the United States, the United States would insist that Taiwan buy gold from the US government at a high price to balance the US trade deficit.
Over the years, we have bought a total of 12.51 million troy ounces of gold from the United States. The total amount of gold currently held by the Central Bank in the Wulai Treasury and stored in the US government treasury reaches 13.59 million troy ounces. This ensures a container of an important role of our country in the world economic context and is also one of our country’s weapons to resist mainland China.
📢 Note from the Editor: Do Not Blindly Worship the Construction of the Japanese Occupation Era
I want to share some thoughts with you. Recently, many people (including Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je) are mocking the aesthetics of the Republic of China (which is actually the Taiwanese people’s own aesthetics) and infinitely praising how wonderful Japan’s construction in Taiwan was in the past.
But I must say this group of people is really not very clear-headed, even forgetting that Japan back then was a resource-invading country (in the year of the Nanjing Massacre alone, the total gold looted was 40 times the gold transported to Taiwan from the mainland). The Republic of China was an exploited country, and who was it that hollowed out Taiwan after the defeat and left a bunch of debts?
Those buildings that are now said to be ugly were actually based on practical considerations in those years and also conformed to the livelihood and economy of those years! Those who mock modern buildings as ugly are precisely the ridiculous cases of modern people judging antiquity by today’s standards.
I also like the current Japan, but the more you blindly worship the Japanese of the Japanese occupation era, the more I feel you are as disgusting as they were.