Yesterday saw 1,000 ex-generals meet in a Taipei's Ta-an Park to rail against President Chen Shui-bian (
Some people might think that this is a triumph of free speech -- and it certainly is worth pointing out that such a meeting would not have been allowed when Hau sat atop the greasy pole. But the meeting forces us to address again a question that seems to be at the heart of the conundrum that is Taiwanese liberal democracy: Where is the line between tolerance and irresponsibility?
These were 1,000 ex-generals, remember, not bank managers or schoolteachers, nothing so innocuous. A thousand men who until quite recently were supposed to lead the armed forces in providing security for the nation. Yet it is quite obvious from their wish for "territorial integration" that protecting Taiwan is the last thing on their minds.
It is hard to imagine anything like this happening anywhere else, no matter how tolerant the society or entrenched its democratic values. Imagine 1,000 retired US generals (to make the analogy fit, you would also have to imagine they were all foreign-born Muslims) meeting on the Mall in Washington to demand that George W. Bush cease punitive measures against al-Qaeda.
American society would be aghast. Why aren't we?
Some might say that people like has-been Hau simply don't matter anymore. But the problem is that the sentiments expressed by Hau and endorsed by his audience are almost certainly shared by a significant number of still-serving officers.
The military was, after all, simply an arm of the Chinese Nationalist Party, rather than the government, until that party lost power in 2000 -- and some readers will remember the reluctance of many senior officers to serve under a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government. The military is perhaps the last secure bastion of the Chiang era's reunificationist sentiments, alien as they are to the majority of Taiwanese.
The very fact that so many retired senior officers can both threaten the president and show sympathy with the goals of Taiwan's enemy suggests that something is still very wrong with the military, despite the last four years of professionalization.
What people say in parks is an issue of free speech -- let Hau and his friends say what they like. But the reflection this cast upon the sentiments of the armed forces is a national security issue and of deep concern to us all. The DPP government has been discussing the issue of new national security legislation for a few years, mainly in response to pan-blue-affiliated civil servants defecting to China. What it wants to do is introduce a system of vetting to assess the trustworthiness of those who are involved with national security. The pan-blues have predictably called this "green terror" -- God forbid that they should ever find out what "green terror" actually would be if it ever happened -- but the system the government wants to put into place is no different from the security clearance systems used in the US and the UK.
This is something that the pan-green majority in the legislature resulting from December's elections will, we hope, speedily address. It might be liberal to tolerate Hau and his ilk, but it is folly to allow disloyalty in the armed forces, and the current don't-ask-don't-tell attitude about sentiment toward reunification and China is simply not good enough. A purge is necessary of both the military and the civil service if Taiwan's sovereignty is to be protected, and we need the legal means to effect this as quickly as possible.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS