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After retreating to Taiwan, the ROC government-in-exile ordered a naval blockade of China, which lasted officially until 1979. In the early years, it was much more aggressively enforced than one might imagine. There were interceptions and attacks by the ROC Navy, CIA-backed Nationalist forces, and some pirate-like actions by unofficial ROC guerrillas. Even ships from the UK and the US were targeted, and being outside of Taiwanese and Chinese waters was no guarantee of safety. But, with several high-profile cases involving the seizure and confiscation of two Polish ships and a Soviet tanker called the Tuapse, the world grew weary and demanded that Chiang Kai-shek stop the blockade. Meanwhile, the detained crews became political footballs. Sadly, some of those sailors who were on the seized vessels ended up in prisons in both the USSR... and Taiwan. Some were stuck here for over 30 years!
Cover image: A composite shows an ROC Navy ship, the ROC Navy emblem, and a Google map of the Chinese coast/Taiwan. Via Wikimedia Commons/Google Maps
Below: The Polish ship Prezydent Gottwald, (1939) was a former German cargo ship damaged by Allied air raids in 1944. It was seized by the ROC Navy on May 13, 1953, while sailing the Polish flag. A handful of crewmembers -- both from Poland and China (PRC) -- were then stuck in Taiwan for decades, as Poland was a communist country back then and the ROC was very anti-communist. Some served long jail sentences, some died, and a few returned home in 1988.
Below: The anchor of the Prezydent Gottwald, a ship that became part of the ROC Navy after its capture and renamed the ROCN Tianzhu, now sits at an ROC Army base in Taichung. Via Traces of War.
Taipei Times article: Taiwan in Time: The ‘closure’ of the Taiwan Strait.
Below: The Soviet tanker Tuapse, seized by the ROC Navy on June 23, 1954.
Via Russia Beyond
Below: The movie poster and images from the movie Чрезвычайное происшествие or in English, Extraordinary Accident. Telling the story of the capture of the Tuapse, it was the 1959 box office leader in the Soviet Union, having had more than 47 million viewers, according to Wikipedia.
Below: The emblem of the ROC Navy, which was founded in 1924.
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Check our very first episode, the story of a very white man who showed up in London in 1703... and claimed to be from Formosa. Or try a foodie episode from Season 3. Or, for those who want some harder-core history, hear the tale of the Lockheed U-2 pilot Wang Hsi-chueh 王錫爵, who became famous for defecting to the PRC by hijacking China Airlines Flight 334 on May 3, 1986.
