Tue, Jan 17, 2017 page8

• The Liberty Times Editorial: The wedge between Taiwanese

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  In 1988, Chang Hsien-yi (張憲義), former deputy director of the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s (CSIST) nuclear division, defected to the US. Chang recently broke his silence with the release of a book entitled Nuclear bomb! Spy? CIA: Record of an Interview with Chang Hsien-yi (核彈！間諜？CIA：張憲義訪問紀錄) by Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History. During the interview, Chang said he did not betray Taiwan by cooperating with the US, saying he feared the institute’s nuclear weapons research would be used by “politically ambitious people” and that this would endanger the security and social stability of Taiwan.

  The politically ambitious people Chang was referring to might have been powerful figures within the military, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or other people. The implication is that at the time, there were forces in Taiwan with the potential to harm the nation. It sounds as if Chang is attempting to rationalize his defection to the US.

  Almost a decade earlier, in 1979, 26-year-old Justin Lin (林毅夫), a military captain who was being nurtured by the KMT, defected to China by swimming from the isolated Mashan (馬山) outpost, which he was commanding on Kinmen Island (金門), to Xiamen (廈門) in China’s Fujian Province. Lin subsequently settled in Beijing and later became a vice president at the World Bank. Unsurprisingly, Lin has also internalized a justification, which he uses to rationalize his defection to China.

  When Lin defected to China, the Taiwan-US diplomatic relationship had already broken down, while Chang’s defection took place just three days before the death of then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). A search for a political motive behind their actions points at a dissatisfaction with the KMT government at the time.

  At the time of both defections, both the Democratic Progressive Party and the Taiwanese independence movement had achieved little success; therefore an identification with what were then obscure political movements cannot be the political motivation for their respective defections.

  Chang is a waishengren (Mainlander, 外省人) who came to Taiwan after the end of World War II, whereas Lin is a benshengren (someone who arrived from China before 1945, 本省人) from Yilan County. Confused over what and for whom they were fighting, both Chang and Lin had conflicted feelings about the KMT regime, yet pretended to be loyal citizens and entered the military.

  At the time, nuclear weapons and Kinmen were both on the front line of Taiwan’s armed forces. Perhaps they both had their personal reasons for defecting, but there is a common denominator to their respective decisions: Since the Republic of China (ROC) was not — and still is not — a normalized nation, they decided to defect to resolve what they saw as a “threat to the nation” or a “threat to Taiwan.”

  How times have changed. Now there is no need for Taiwanese politicians and retired high-ranking military officers to take the risks that Chang and Lin did. Serving military officials are sucked into China’s spying network, while retired generals — such as former air force general Hsia Ying-chou (夏瀛洲) — can visit China and say that “no distinction should be made between the ROC Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, as both are ‘China’s army.’”

  Then there is the succession of meetings that have taken place between KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders — from the meeting between former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to the 2015 tete-a-tete between then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the recent confab between KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Xi, when Hung loudly proclaimed that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to “one China.”

  There has been almost no legal consequences for the people holding these meetings with Taiwan’s enemy, although there have been political ramifications. There clearly exists an enormous gray area in the legal underpinnings of Taiwan’s democracy, but an even more fundamental problem is that the present situation is not so dissimilar from the KMT party-state era through which Chang and Lin lived. After all, the “ROC” (Taiwan) is still not a normalized nation.

  If, as the KMT believes, both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to “one China,” then surely logic follows that the People’s Republic of China should inherit the ROC.

  If Taiwan fails to gain international recognition as a sovereign nation, then how can there be a connection between popular and direct presidential elections and regular elections on the one hand and national identity on the other?

  To this day, Lin’s return to Taiwan to attend the funeral of his father or to visit relatives remains a taboo, and there is no time limit on criminal liability.

  As for Chang, although the charges against him for disclosing state secrets have now been dropped, would he dare to return to Taiwan?

  Although both Lin and Chang inflicted a significant amount of damage on the nation, and they would not be forgiven easily, they are inconsequential figures belonging to a bygone era. Their stories are but a footnote in the Cold War and the roles they played could quite easily have been carried out by other people. With the end of the Cold War, their awkward, insignificant stories became nothing more than leisurely topics for after-dinner conversation, and they must now pay the price for their decisions.

  Chang is able to lead an ordinary life: He is lucky to live in the US, a democracy. Lin, on the other hand, resides in autocratic China: He likely still holds some value in the eyes of China’s rulers, a situation over which he has no control.

  The situation in Taiwan today bears no comparison to Taiwanese society in 1979 and 1988. In today’s Taiwan, ideas of nationhood and national identity are far more distinct. The KMT’s talk of launching a counterattack on CCP-controlled China and its dark period of oppressive rule has been fully exposed by Taiwan’s democratization movement.

  Taiwanese have already expelled the KMT from the halls of government and into opposition through the ballot box, precluding unforeseen nightmares.

  Despite this, there are many indications that concepts of nationhood and national identity still remain ambiguous. For instance, even the policy of maintaining the “status quo” is symptomatic of an abnormal nation. Even now, talk of pursuing justice and political repercussions for the actions of Chang and Lin are motivated by little more than a desire to see people punished for their crimes.

  Taiwanese should not just be trying to revisit the past in a futile search for justice, they should use the examples of Chang and Lin as a way to reflect on Taiwan’s situation.

  Is Taiwan a normalized nation to the extent that it is able to tie up these historic loose ends?

  We are living in a different age; the KMT’s refusal to change with the times can be read either as farce or tragedy, depending on one’s point of view.

  Surely the party’s assorted political formulas — “one China, different interpretations,” “one China, same interpretation,” or the “one China” principle, all add up to the same thing: the creation of a fertile breeding ground for a new generation of Changs and Lins. No wonder, then, that the KMT has lowered itself to dependence on Beijing.

  Furthermore, with the phrase “president of Taiwan” having now entered the international lexicon, if President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) continues to doggedly observe the old rules by maintaining the “ROC status quo,” how will the government ever be in a position to hand out effective punishment to those retired high-ranking military officers and Chinese nationalists who sow discord and disunity at every opportunity.

  Taiwan is struggling to hold on to its diplomatic allies. Although Tsai was engaged in a much-trumpeted series of overseas state visits to four of the nation’s diplomatic allies in Central America — dubbed the Ying Chieh Project — the visits were still being conducted as if her government is a representative of China.

  In presenting itself to the outside world as the Republic of China, the government is holding up the transition of Taiwan to becoming a normalized nation.

  Meanwhile, Beijing is fully exploiting Taiwan’s predicament and is seeking to divide and disrupt Taiwan with its united front work.

  The Tsai administration, with its hold both on the executive and a legislative majority, must find the courage to deal with this situation, while proving wrong those who predict Taiwan will eventually self-destruct and tear itself apart.

  Translated by Edward Jones
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