Although issues involving cross-strait relations are usually highly polarized, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) has become a common target of criticism from the pan-blue as well as the pan-green camp after reports emerged that he was planning to attend a military parade in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of China’s victory in the so-called War of Resistance Against Japan.
While it should be obvious that the pan-green camp would be critical, opposition has also come from the government and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) comrades of Lien’s, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
However, such bipartisan opposition is not surprising, because it is not an event to enhance cross-strait exchanges — rather, it is something that touches the core of the rivalry between the Republic of China (ROC) and the KMT on one side, and the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the other, as well as the two sides’ different interpretations of the war.
According to the KMT’s version, at the time of the War of Resistance Against Japan from 1937 to 1945, China was still largely under the control of the ROC regime, while the CCP was only a rebel group that pretended to be collaborating with the KMT against Japan, while strengthening itself to seize power.
However, the CCP’s version says that it also put great effort into the war and contributed much to it.
Moreover, since the ROC collapsed after losing the Chinese Civil War, the PRC inherited China’s sovereignty as well as the nation’s history, therefore considering itself the appropriate host of commemorations of the war against Japan.
Lien’s participation in a military parade as a top KMT official and a former vice president of the ROC could be interpreted by China as meaning the KMT and the ROC recognize Beijing’s version of wartime history, just as other foreign dignitaries who will attend the event do.
The significance of Lien’s attendance at the parade is not limited to its historical and political implications; it could also be a legal issue.
Article 10 of the Criminal Code for the Armed Forces of the Republic of China (中華民國陸海空軍刑法) stipulates that “the word ‘enemy’ in the code denotes any country or organization that engages in or whose force confronts with the Republic of China.” China, with more than 1,000 missiles pointed at Taiwan, would certainly be defined as an “enemy” of the ROC.
It is ironic that a former vice president would take part in an event of a military nature in a rival nation, watching the armed forces that could one day be dispatched against his own nation paraded in front of his eyes.
Earlier this month, when former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said in an interview with a Japanese magazine that when he and his brother served in the Japanese army during the Japanese colonial era, they considered Japan their motherland, Ma criticized the remarks as “betraying Taiwan, humiliating the people, and discrediting [Lee].”
However, those words would probably better describe Lien.
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