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Initiatives in the Political Field

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In June 1951, Losin Watan (Lin Jui-chang) made an interpellation at the 11th conference of the first Taiwan Provincial Representative Council, demanding the establishment of a responsible and specific organization to only facilitate the montain area administration. For the Mountain Light Monthly, he suggested using both Mandarin Chinese and Japnaese to promote the national language.


Wu Kuo-chen (K. C. Wu), chairperson of the Taiwan Provincial Government, considered that the montain area admibistration was already faciliated by unification. It was only because the reform just took place and thus lacked communication. However, the use of Japanese was strongly prohibited as the promotion of national language (Mandarin Chinese) was already underway.


Yang Chau-Chia, the director of the Construction Department, noted that it was a must to ban the use of other languages in order to popularize the national language. To make it up, the “phonetic symbols” for the mountain area dialects would be created. Meantime, the Taiwan Provincial Supply and Marketing of Mountain Area would be operated by civilians and surpervised by the government in the form of farmers' associations or cooperatives, owing to the problems such as personnel, competitivity, and finance.


In August 1952, at the second conference of the first Interim Taiwan Provincial Council, Losin Watan made another interpellation by sticking to the issue of organizations related to the mountain area affairs. He requested for the establishment of the “Mountain Area Administration Bureau,” directly belonging to the Taiwan Provincial Government. Moreover, he urged the government to open the farmland for the mountain compatriots to achieve the goal of the policy “Land to the Tiller (a land reform to make all farmers the owners of their farmland).” The Taiwan Provincial Government replied on September 20 that it still did not agree on setting up such an organization specifically for the montain area administration affairs, but it will take opening of the farmland into account. However, prior to the issuing of this reply, Losin Watan was already arrested on September 10.

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