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| Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprises, Inc. |
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text by Chen Chieh-Jen
In the period from 1949-1950, the United States withdrew military support for Kuomintang forces during their decisive retreat to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. Later, at the onset of the Korean War in 1950, the U.S., in an apparent reversal, renewed support for the Taiwan- based Kuomintang as part of its Cold War containment policy aimed at curbing the rising tide of communism in East Asia. To this end, the CIA established an operation known as Western Enterprises in cooperation with the Kuomintang government in 1951 to train the local Anti- Communist National Salvation Army (NSA) for a surprise attack on Mainland China, transforming Taiwan into a base for anti-communist operations in East Asia.
While the CIA only operated Western Enterprises from 1951 to 1955, its Taiwan mission continued in different guises under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty from 1954 to 1979. Prefiguring the long-term U.S. imperialist domination of Taiwan and serial policy changes towards the island, the spirit of Western Enterprises lived on in the form of U.S. support for the Kuomintang dictatorship, suppression of leftist factions and programmatic brainwashing of the Taiwanese people long after the operation's official dissolution. All of this molded Taiwan as a close U.S. ally and an anti-communist stronghold, as well as primed Taiwan for entry into the global capitalist empire orchestrated by the United States.
The inspiration for Chen Chieh-jen's Empire's Borders II - Western Enterprises Inc. arose from items left by Chen's father, a former NSA soldier, when he passed away. These items included a partially fictitious autobiography, a list of soldiers who were lost at sea during an NSA's surprise attack on the Chinese People's Liberation Army, a vintage photo album with its pictures removed and an old military uniform.
Regarding these items, Chen once wrote, "My elder brother told me that Father had said those soldiers lost at sea were the sons of poor people just like he was. At the time, being a soldier was the only option, and they didn't even receive a salary My father also said the autobiography was fake; it was just to show to the authorities. Although the pictures that had been in the album were burned by my father long ago, I remember seeing them as a child. There were many pictures of Father with other NSA soldiers being trained by Western Enterprises."
What did Chen's father, who grew up in a poor fishing village, think they were defending in that attack on the PLA? Did he know there was a Kuomintang-sponsored, brutal crackdown on leftist factions within Taiwan at the time? How did he view the later Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and America's so-called economic aid to Taiwan and long-term cultural propaganda under Cold War/martial law mechanisms? Furthermore, what was the significance of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and concurrent rise ofneoliberalism for Chen's father?
Like many other men of his time, Chen Chieh-jen's father chose to remain silent about life under martial law surveillance during the Cold War period. Legacies of this collective silence, however, have created vast historical and spiritual voids in the contemporary life of Taiwanese society. Based on the historical testimony of an empty photo album; the truth of a fabricated autobiography; the names on an unverified list of casualties; and a uniform which once clothed the youthful frame of his father, Chen takes us on a journey through the internal workings of Western Enterprises with this video.
Chen's motivation for creating this artwork was not to analyze the evolution of Western Enterprises' role in recent Taiwanese history, nor was it merely to uncover the imperialist intentions of the United States. More importantly, through the process of re-imagining and rewriting based on explorations of his own family history and related collective histories, Chen wished to consider the potential for healing and reconstructing the self in a society whose records were erased by Western Enterprises, or in regions where historical trajectories were molded by imperialist forces.
Chen Chieh-jen once wrote, "This film affords an opportunity to re-imagine memories in a society without records, and to heal the self by refocusing attention on the void created by Western Enterprises. On this journey into our recent past, we can reunite with those silenced voices to rebuild our home for the future." |
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