More than 20 retired generals last month traveled to China to meet with their former Chinese counterparts and current government officials, despite the Ministry of National Defense (MND) and the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Service’s efforts to dissuade them from taking the trip, military sources said.
Generals Cheng Ting-chung (陳廷寵) and Li Chen-lin (李楨林), and former commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Army Huang Hsing-chiang (黃幸強) led the group to attend the sixth edition of a cross-strait retired generals festival in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, the sources said.
The festival is part of a series of events marking the 90th anniversary of the Whampoa Military Academy (黃埔軍校), the Republic of China Military Academy’s predecessor.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The academy was established in 1924 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. It produced many elite military officers who fought in the eight-year Second Sino-Japanese War.
Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) re-established the academy in Greater Kaohsiung’s Fengshan District (鳳山) after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government retreated to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War.
Its alumni include former Chinese vice premier Lin Biao (林彪) and former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來).
Photo: Lo Tien-pin, Taipei Times
Anonymous military officials said that at the festival last month, the retired generals discussed with their Chinese counterparts issues concerning a cross-strait military confidence-building mechanism.
During the talks, some members of the Taiwanese delegation said that only after such a mechanism is establish will both sides have the space in which to conduct political negotiations and perhaps sign political agreements.
The sources said that the ministry and the commission tried several times to persuade the generals to not take the trip so as to avoid making pro-unification implications.
While the groups that received the Taiwanese delegation brand themselves as civic organizations, they are supported by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and China’s United Front Work Department, the sources said.
In related developments, the ministry said it is to mark the 90th anniversary of the Whampoa Military Academy with a series of events this month and next month.
As part of the celebrations, the Republic of China Military Academy is to open its campus to the public on Friday, while the Thunder Tiger Aerobatics Team and the army’s Airborne Brigade Sky Diving Team will perform a show, the ministry said.
In addition, advanced weapon systems, including the Thunderbolt-2000 RT/LT-2000 and PAC-3 launcher system, are to be displayed at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall’s Liberty Square in Taipei on June 7, while an exhibition of historical relics and documents from the Whampoa Military Academy will be held at the Military Historical Relic Museum in Taipei on June 13, it added.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS