In contrast to this, Robert Hung Ngai was usually ready to give his point of view and remained unabashed no matter how high-ranking or dictatorial the audience. He recalled visits to Taiwan when Chiang Kai-shek was President, his father was a respected consultant for the Taiwanese government, and he himself was working at his family’s newspaper.

Telling the truth to Chiang Kai-shek

“President Chiang Kai-shek would ask me to visit his office and ask my opinion of Taiwan as a reporter. As you can imagine, in his position as a semi-dictator, not too many people would tell him the truth. I told him what I thought: a spade was a spade.

“I said the traffic in Taipei was terrible due to the problem of traffic lights that allowed pedestrians to cross but held up the flow of vehicles. I said: ‘When you are travelling, the street is cleared for you so you wouldn’t know these things.’ My suggestion was to provide tunnels or bridges for pedestrians to enable the traffic to keep moving. I said: ‘You should look into that.’ And that’s what happened! Hong Kong later did the same. But I give myself the credit for the Taipei change!

“Other things I would mention would be what I saw on the streets and the atmosphere and people’s views of him and why they felt that way. I didn’t go to Taiwan often but I had some friends who told me about the climate of the place and I relayed these views.

“Then he invited me down to Sun Moon Lake, where he had a small house. My wife and one son went too and we stayed for three days. Madam Chiang had two German shepherd dogs and the three of us would be sitting there, not daring to move as we didn’t know if the dogs were trained or not. My kid was scared to death!”

In speaking in this way to Chiang Kai-shek whose temperamental reputation was fearsome, Robert Hung Ngai believed it a way to provide information to someone who was probably desperate to learn what was really happening. At the same time, his own outsider position gave him additional leeway.

“For someone in Chiang’s position, you are dying for information yet surrounded by people who dare not speak the truth,” Mr Ho said. “They are only saying: ‘Yes sir, yes sir.’ Well, I thought, I am just a reporter and I don’t depend on him. It seems he took my suggestions as fresh ideas. Later, I had many conversations with Chiang’s son Chiang Ching-kuo as well.

Chiang Ching-kuo served as Taiwan’s premier from 1972 to 1978 and was President of Taiwan from 1978 to 1988.