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fears about retribution by management,” Hsu recalled. Even though these particular fears were unjustified, some members of 4-A worried about what management would “do” to them—a Pavlovian response, they believe, to their childhood under the 1950s “White Terror” in Taiwan when critics of the KMT were dealt with summarily. Suspected subversives, Hsu said, would simply disappear in the middle of the night, never to be heard of again, without benefit of a regular trial or even a court-martial. And even though these former Taiwanese were now working in corporate America, thousands of miles from Taiwan and years after the White Terror, many could not shake their early conditioning to the expectation that one wrong word or act, or even a posture of defiance, could lead to severe punishment, even death.

In the early 1970s, the Nationalists running Taiwan faced dangerous currents in the political wind. The People’s Republic of China had won a certain grudging respect from the international community when it joined the nuclear club in the 1960s. Soon its size and threat as a military power could not be ignored, and, one by one, governments around the world began to recognize the PRC not as usurpers but as the legitimate government of China.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon suggested in his State of the World address that the United Nations give the People’s Republic a seat, but recognize Taiwan as well. Predictably, supporters of Taiwan in the United States reacted with howls of outrage. Anna Chennault, a vocal leader within the pro-Nationalist lobby, called this move “worse than the betrayal of a loyal ally, it is, simply, wrong-headed.” Shocked by Nixon’s overtures to the PRC, Chennault scolded, “Mr. President, if you decide to abandon Taiwan, it will be tantamount to the United States telling the Free World that it can no longer depend on it for support.”

But these protests could not hold back the river of history. The UN decided not only to grant membership and China’s seat in the Security Council to the PRC but also to expel the Nationalists altogether. In February 1972, Nixon became the first American president to visit the People’s Republic of China, bestowing additional legitimacy upon the Communist government. During his highly publicized tour, Chinese and American diplomats announced in Shanghai a “joint communiqué,” in which the United States acknowledged “there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China.” Further, the United States promised to withdraw military forces from Taiwan, cultivate trade with the People’s Republic, and normalize U.S. relations with Beijing.

It is difficult for outsiders today to imagine the terror this declaration of U.S.-PRC friendship provoked in Taiwan. The Nationalists considered American recognition crucial to the island’s independence—indeed, the only force capable of preventing military conquest by the mainland. Withdrawal of staunch, public U.S. support, they believed, would jerk the trip wire to a PRC attack.

Shortly after Nixon’s landmark visit to China, his political star plummeted with the Watergate scandal. Tapes of his White House conversations provided “smoking gun” evidence that he had personally obstructed justice, and in 1974, before the House could impeach him, Nixon resigned from office. Even though Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic had provoked much hatred and criticism in Taiwan, his decision to abdicate from power baffled many there. “During Watergate, we didn’t understand why Nixon had to resign, why Americans made such a big fuss over a president trying to cover up something: That’s just what they do,” said Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, who had grown up in Taiwan during the 1970s. “But America’s different, because it’s such a young country, it’s still so innocent.”

Nixon’s China diplomacy was not the only event of the 1970s that made Taiwan’s future insecure. The United States was now rethinking its cold war policies in Asia. The Vietnam War had become an embarrassment for the United States. For a decade, the world’s most powerful nation