Print

Mail

wiki links

Editorial: No need for loyalty confusion

Ministry of National Defense prosecutors announced Monday that they had issued an arrest warrant for Lieutenant Wang Yi-hung (王宜宏) on charges of defecting to China. When reports first surfaced last month that Wang had gone to Thailand with his family and then flown to China, the military spoke of his case in terms of desertion. Now it is a clear case of treason.

This is the first time the military has been so public about a defection -- an enormous improvement from the KMT era when the military never dared speak the truth about treason cases. Given that the armed forces have faced ideological disputes over "who and what to fight for" since the transition of power -- if not since former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) began his "Taiwanization" program -- defining Wang's case as a defection is a significant policy announcement that will clarify for those in the military just who their enemies are.

In June, there was a brouhaha over Justin Lin (林毅夫), an army officer who defected to China in 1979 and later became a protege of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基). Lin wanted to returned to Taiwan to attend his father's funeral, triggering a debate between the pro-independence and pro-unification camps. Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) issued a strong condemnation of Lin and asked him to face the legal liabilities caused by his defection. Lin decided not to come back.

If Tang had not spoken out, Lin could very well have returned to Taiwan and become a darling of the pro-independence camp, which had painted him as an "anti-KMT hero." This reaction points out the confusion of values in both the pro-independence and pro-unification camps. His return also could have eroded morale in the armed forces as well as society at large. For Taiwan, the impact of the Lin case was no less damaging than that of China's missile tests in 1996.

How to solidify their psychological defenses and counter the discord sown by Beijing is a major test for the people of Taiwan in the face of an opponent highly skilled in power struggles.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in a written statement made public in Washington on Saturday said, "China is attempting to use `fifth columnists' and similar methods to destroy Taiwan's political and economic environment." Certainly, one cannot label people without adequate evidence. However, undeniably, the behavior of some pro-unification personalities and media is no different from that of fifth columnists. Since the Lee Teng-hui era, these people have leaned toward Beijing in their opposition against the localization of politics in Taiwan. They continuously complain to China -- first about Lee and now about Chen -- and serve as Beijing's mouthpieces in Taiwan.

The unificationist media have recently been jumping on the Chinese Communist Party's 16th National Congress bandwagon -- arguing that there is an opportunity for change. They also have used the congress as an opportunity to let Lin launch another offensive against Taiwan by justifying Wang's defection as an "anti-DPP" act. Sounds like he wants to persuade the people here that betraying the DPP is the proper thing to do.

This explains why, after Chen's remarks on Saturday, front-page headlines in the pro-unificationist media asked "Who was Chen talking about?" The reason why they were asking this is simple: They have a guilty conscience.
This story has been viewed 2075 times.