Dismounting a Tiger

Three weeks ago a well-known Formosan publisher who dared propose setting up an opposition political party went to jail. Kuomintang officials congratulated themselves that they had neatly disposed of the opposition and expected to hear no more about it. After all, the technique had worked before--notably three years ago, when another political critic, the daily Rung Lun Pao's chief editorial writer Ni Shi-tan, had been summarily sentenced to seven years in prison for "sedition" for criticizing the Nationalist government. His case got almost no attention either inside or outside Formosa. But last week the case of Publisher Lei Chen (TIME, Sept. 19) was proving about as easy to hush up as a typhoon.

In the U.S., Dr. Hu Shih, China's most eminent scholar and a former Chinese Nationalist Ambassador to the U.S., bustled between Washington and New York, demanding an open civil trial for Lei Chen. Dr. Hu is a close friend of Chiang Kaishek, but at the same time he is also a leading exponent of Formosa's need for a responsible opposition. Other overseas Chinese took up the cudgels. In Hong Kong the British-owned China Mail said angrily that Lei's arrest proved that "free speech is as dangerous in Formosa as it was shown to be during the Hundred Flowers campaign on the mainland."

Even on Formosa the government's claim that Lei had employed two Communist agents on his Free China Fortnightly was not believed. "If Lei had really been suspected of Communist affiliations," said a Nationalist, "he would have been arrested long ago." Lei's political colleagues refused to scare; they announced they would go ahead and establish their China Democratic Party without him.

At week's end Chinese Nationalists were unhappily trying to figure a way out. Admitted one official: "The government would gladly release Lei if it had any way of saving face."

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