Restless Spirits

Boxed up in exile on Formosa, the legislators of Nationalist China have fretted for eight years. Since they represent vocational groups and home districts on the mainland that are under Communist control, they can neither be removed nor re-elected by voters. Accountable mainly to themselves, awaiting the "return to the mainland" that does not come, they have little to do; the provincial government of Formosa deals with most day-to-day governing. They have little voice; the 15-man Standing Committee of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Party decides government policies without consulting them. Result: lawmakers have tended increasingly to bolt party discipline, attack Chiang's ministers.

Four times between March and December last year the Control Yuan, Nationalist China's legislative watchdog body, summoned Premier O.K. Yui to come before the Yuan to answer charges of waste in 15 government agencies. Four times Yui refused. When Yui rejected a fifth summons on the ground that, under the constitution, he does not have to answer to the Control Yuan, the legislators' pent-up frustration exploded. The Control Yuan formally voted to impeach the Premier.

Named Premier in 1954, chubby, talkative O.K. Yui has built a reputation for personal honesty and integrity. The vote did appear to have been aimed less at Yui personally than at the Kuomintang Party's tight control of government affairs. Last week, as Yui's Cabinet approved the draft of the defense that he must submit to the Judicial Yuan for a ruling in the case, the Kuomintang's Central Daily News loftily pronounced the impeachment "meaningless and without value."

But politics-conscious people on Formosa agreed that the political atmosphere was more tense than at any time in years. The legislators showed no signs of backing down in their campaign for more authority, despite Chiang Kai-shek's pleas to avoid rocking the boat. In some quarters there were even mutterings about trying to form an opposition to the Kuomintang. But nowhere in the grumbling was there any threat to bolt Chiang's leadership in foreign policy or to try to make a deal with the mainland Reds. It was an internal squabble that Chiang would have to arbitrate if mediation failed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.