Some “one China” theorists of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan are clinging to the national title, which was abandoned by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. They do not realize that it is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that ended the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) party-state rule in China, while departing from the political line of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who hated the communists the most.
After former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) was defeated in the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, he led a KMT delegation to visit China, where he was referred to as “Grandpa Lien” (連翁翁) by a group of children during a reception. At the end of his presidency, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore in 2015.
Following their steps, some of the KMT, government, military and intelligence have started to visit China one after another, and treat the ROC and Taiwan as nothing. After the second “Ma-Xi meeting” not long ago, what is the future of the “one China” theorists in Taiwan?
What greatly contradicts the two Chiangs’ anti-communist dogma is the retired generals, who claimed to be alumni of Whampoa Military Academy — which was renamed to ROC Military Academy after moving to Taiwan in 1950. From the news footage on TV, they were lined up to listen to Xi’s “sacred teachings” at Whampoa’s centennial celebration in China. Such former anti-CCP retired generals have no military spirit or martial ethics. They have shamelessly made Taiwan lose face, and would have been decapitated during the two Chiang presidents’ rule.
The crises on Taiwan’s road to national reconstruction are characterized by the internal crisis of the feudal reactionary nature of Taiwan’s Mandarin education in the process of the Taiwanese’s cultivation, and by the external crisis of retired generals who do not know what the country is, whose military spirit, martial virtues as well as national character are all gone.
Soldiers must defend the country and protect the people. No matter how good the weapons are and how advanced the equipment is, if there is no military spirit, martial ethics and national character, the national defense power might not be strong enough. Today, Taiwan still has some Japanese wudenden (武德殿), literally “martial ethics temples” in Chinese, left by the Japanese colonial rule. As the Japanese name soldiers’ training fields like this, a philosophy under which body and soul are intertwined is imaginable.
During the two Chiangs’ rule, the government learned from the political warfare of the Soviet Union by having “political workers” in the military to monitor the troops. Ironically, retired general Hsu Li-nong (許歷農), who is one of the first to become pro-China and affiliated with the CCP, was the political warfare leader of the military. What an absurd situation indeed.
Taiwan is a democratic country. We do not expect Taiwan’s military officers to commit hara-kiri to apologize for their misjudgement like the defeated Japanese generals of World War II, but they should at least try to preserve their military spirit, martial ethics and national character.
As for politicians, their national identity and sense of belonging to Taiwan should also be examined. For those who used to bow to the will of the party-state rule and have now turned to Beijing, such political opportunists are exactly where Taiwan’s national problem lie.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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