VM44...It took a while to get it, but I got it.
The story of what happened in Taiwan is interesting. The official Watchtower descriptions of this schism are not as explicit...they do not reveal that the leader of the schism was their own branch overseer for Taiwan, or that he himself had been sexually promiscuous (as alleged), or that this man suffered persecution for his faith during WWII. Here are the two allusions to the incident in post-1970 literature:
*** yb72 p. 230 Taiwan ***
Even responsible brothers were charged with dishonesty, favoritism, immoral activities and lack of loyalty to the theocratic organization. And, unfortunately, some of the charges were true. Some had to be disfellowshiped, others removed from service either as overseers or special pioneers, and still others were disciplined. Some of those disfellowshiped turned against the Society openly and began to use their influence with the brothers in a number of congregations to turn them away also. The opposed ones who had been expelled from the organization even went so far as to lodge charges against the organization of the Witnesses in various departments of the government. Congregations were urged to refuse the visit of Society-appointed circuit servants. It also came out during the investigations that many had been recommended and eventually appointed to serve as special pioneers, overseers in congregations and even as circuit servants, not because they were Scripturally qualified, but because they were related to or under the influence of the one recommending them.
*** w79 9/1 p. 10 A Different Struggle for Survival in Taiwan ***
The simple openness of the tribal people enabled them to accept the Bible’s message of survival readily. But would they be able to defend and hold fast to their hope under trial? Late 1961 brought a test that revealed a weakness. The first Amis man to accept the truth before World War II was disfellowshiped, and immediately he set out to capture the whole organization for himself. Many of the 2,500 reporting field service up to that time were his relatives and friends, and quite a number of these succumbed to his threats and persuasions. Sadly, many from the tribal areas have continued to fall away because of the enticements of materialism and other factors.
And here is Floyd Kite's more candid version of the incident:
What about the branch overseer in Taiwan? It was just a few issues of the Watchtower ago we had an interesting article about Taiwan and what happened in that country. Back in the 1960s, the branch overseer of Taiwan had been invited by the Watchtower Society to attend the ten-month course at Gilead for branch overseers. Just before he was to leave Taiwan to come to the United States, he was exposed as having been an immoral man with many women. Immediately the Watchtower Society organized a special committee. He was disfellowshipped. He then took the Watchtower Society to court and sued them for slander. That added to the publicity of the thing! The Watchtower Society won the suit. But you look in the Yearbooks in the 1960s and it’s acknowledged in this recent Watchtower article on Taiwan, the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses steadily declined year after year because this man had been so prominent, even suffering incarceration at the hands of the Japanese during World War II, and then teaching the truth to so many of the mountain people of Taiwan, and later carrying on for a lengthy period of time this immortality, finally being exposed -- why, the organization’s ranks dropped year after year. It was such a tremendous impact on God’s people because of this one man. Think of how bewildering, confusing such a thing is.
Does anyone have access to Yearbooks from the 1960s to post the figures for Taiwan from 1960-1970? I know that they were still decreasing in the 1970 Yearbook (peak publishers of 1,087, a "slight decrease" from the year before due to "further cleansing," p. 286).
As for this man being incarcerated by the Japanese during WWII, the 1972 Yearbook account of Taiwan (p. 215) interestingly mentions a "Brother Idei" (= Motohiro Idei, 1 September 1991 Watchtower, p. 10) as the first convert in Taiwan by the missionaries ("the first Amis man to accept the truth before World War II," according to the 1979 Watchtower article, above), baptized in December 1937 with his wife after just two days of Bible study immediately after the missionaries' arrival. The Ideis figure very prominently in the early half of the story of JW evangelism in Taiwan, and there is an account of Mr. Idei's incarceration by the Japanese from June-October 1938. But there is no indication that this same Mr. Idei who kept his faith under persecution (and thus was favorably mentioned for this) was the same person who later "turned against the Society openly" and "set to capture the whole organization for himself", if this was indeed the same person, in which case Idei then becomes an anonymous troublemaker, as that would spoil the otherwise nice story about the Ideis.
I'm not sure however if this is indeed the person in question, despite the fact that he was the first convert there and despite the fact that he was incarcerated. The 9/1/1991 Watchtower autobiography by Sister Idei indicates that she met Motohiro in Japan who then moved with her to Taiwan in c. 1932 (to the outskirts of Chiai in central Taiwan), whereas the 1979 article claims that the person in question was an "Amis man", i.e. an indigenous native of Taiwan. On the other hand, Chiayi was the home of the Tsou tribe of the Amis, and one Japanese website about the JWs (http://www.geocities.jp/todai_sha/relative_persons/relative_persons.html) claims that Motohiro Idei, husband of Miyo Idei, was the Japanese name for Chen Kuanpei.
