459: Taiwan's 1957 Liu Ziran Incident & Reynolds Riot w/ Stephen G. Craft

In March 1957, Master Sergeant Robert Reynolds, a U.S. military adviser living with his family outside Taipei, Taiwan, shot and killed a man named Liu Ziran, who Reynolds claimed had been peeping through his bathroom window. Because Reynolds had diplomatic immunity, he was tried by a U.S. Army court-martial, and Taiwanese officials had no say in the proceedings. When he was acquitted that May, outrage boiled over, and an angry mob stormed the U.S. Embassy in Taipei. My guest is Stephen G. Craft, author of American Justice in Taiwan: The 1957 Riots and Cold War Foreign Policy. He discusses how Taiwan emerged as a political power separate from mainland China, and the uneasy but mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the Republic of China in the 1950s. The author's Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University bio page: https://erau.edu/faculty/Stephen.Craft The author's publisher page: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813166353/american-justice-in-taiwan/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices