Retired military personnel are planning to attend a protest in Taipei tomorrow not only because Taiwan has not respected its military, but the military has suffered humiliation from Taiwanese for far too long, former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Ting Yu-chou (丁渝洲) said on Tuesday.
Ting, who was speaking at the launch of former National Security Bureau official Lee Tien-tuo’s (李天鐸) new book, The Military Spirit under the Republic of China National Flag (青天白日下的軍魂), said the “military spirit” refers to the soul of the military and is the greatest pillar of spiritual support in times of war.
“Units that have no soul are unable to do their best in battle, and every nation around the world has policies in place to respect and protect their own military to preserve and cement their faith in their ideology, or soul,” Ting said.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
“However, modern Taiwan has taken exactly the opposite approach and is constantly shaming its military, from ordering personnel to apologize for torturing a dog, the woman, surnamed Hung (洪), who slandered veterans, and the incident where four petty officers crawled into the house of Huang Wen-chung (黃文忠), the captain of the fishing ship that was accidentally hit by a navy missile,” he said.
These actions are insults against the military and have caused the military to lose face, Ting said, adding that he thought it was the reason two recent recruitment drives by the Republic of China (ROC) Military Academy were unsuccessful.
“The recruitment drives were not unsuccessful because the nation is gradually shifting to an all-voluntary force,” Ting said. “Officers are retiring early because they have been insulted one too many times.”
Ting said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) might be aware of the potential severity of the situation and has called on military personnel attending tomorrow’s parade to wear their uniforms.
“We hope that no matter which political party comes to power, it should strive to make the military and the nation’s intelligence agencies institutionalized and truly neutral to better promote the establishment of central ideology for the military,” Ting said, adding that he would be attending the parade.
Meanwhile, former NSC deputy secretary-general Wang Hsi-tien (王西田), who also spoke at the book launch, said he felt the most important aspect of working in national security was to be professional regarding national security policies, but also to remain “outside the circle” of political camps.
“If individuals in the intelligence branch are unable to distinguish themselves in their own field or profession, how are they able to give the government a better grasp on its national security or provide key information on which the head of state bases their decisions?” Wang said.
Intelligence agency personnel and national security consultants should be trained for their profession, not for a political party, he said, adding that ever since the first transfer of power in 2000, every time a new government is sworn in the national security branch is reshuffled.
Wang said he was worried that if the situation continues, the safety of the nation might be the price to pay for having a “trustworthy” and “politically correct” national security team.
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