The Formosan View

Formosans know what they want

Li Thian-hok

At the end of the 1950s, the view from the perspective of the native Taiwanese -- or Formosans as they were generally referred to at that time -- was hardly heard.

However, in the Fall of 1957, Mr. Li Thian-hok, a young student at the University of Minnesota, wrote a BA graduation thesis, which received summa cum laude honors, and won the top prize among some 10,000 papers that year.

The paper caught the attention of the editors of Foreign Affairs magazine, which published it in its April 1958 issue, together with essays by such luminaries as Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger and Walt Rostow.

The essay was titled: The China impasse, a Formosan view (PDF-format).

Mr. Li subsequently went to Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In November 1958, he published another article, this one in the New Republic magazine.

This essay was titled: Formosans know what they want (PDF-format).

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