During a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan on March 24, Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) suggested that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) consider inviting Hong Kongers to Taiwan to serve as recruits in the Republic of China (ROC) military because they “hate Chinese more than Taiwanese do.”
Hong Kong is under Chinese jurisdiction, and openly recruiting citizens of an enemy state to serve in Taiwan’s military is slightly provocative.
Chen Po-wei deserves credit for bringing up the issue of the military’s national identification at the legislature. The political warfare thinking in the armed forces is only weakly identified with Taiwan and there is confusion over who the enemy really is.
For instance, the military song I Love Chunghwa (我愛中華) that soldiers chant at night roll call does not differ at all from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Chinese nationalism, and it would not be out of place if sung by soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The armed forces’ military songs have long abounded with a nationalism aiming toward a “Greater China,” an idea almost completely disconnected from today’s Taiwanese society.
It is understandable that the ROC military adopted an aggressive militarist stance under the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) past authoritarian regime, as its ultimate goal was to retake the Chinese territory it had lost.
Today, when the Taiwanese public’s only wish is to defend Taiwan, the military should abandon the idea of “restoring the glory of Chunghwa and reconquering the mainland,” and instead identify with Taiwan and safeguarding the homeland.
I performed my military service on one of the outlying islands in the Matsu archipelago in 2015, one year after the Sunflower movement. During my time of service, I did not understand why soldiers had to sing I Love Chunghwa, a song I could not relate to.
Singing Good Night! Formosa! (晚安台灣) — a song written by Taiwanese rock band Fire Ex that became widely known during the movement — would be a much better choice, as the lyrics are filled with a tender feeling toward the homeland and it more powerfully evokes among soldiers a willingness to safeguard Taiwan.
The military’s main combat force is made up of people under 40, most of whom identify as Taiwanese.
In addition to the need for advanced weaponry and expertise in combat skills, the military must have strong psychological readiness, which comes from identification with one’s country.
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages across China and causes an economic slump, Beijing has been trying to provoke conflict by flying its warplanes around the nation and its fishing boats ram Taiwanese coast guard ships in the nation’s territorial waters.
If Taiwan fails to further raise its awareness of who the enemy is, the long-existing confusion regarding national identity within the military could become a point of leverage for China’s psychological warfare.
The Ministry of National Defense should revise military songs and the general spirit of military propaganda and political warfare to keep up with the times.
Regardless of how the ministry plans to revise military songs — either by choosing other songs or commissioning new compositions — the most important task is to incorporate symbols of Taiwanese identity into the songs, thereby allowing the military to sing the same tune as Taiwanese society.
Hsu Hao is a personal trainer.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Last week, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) unveiled the location of Nvidia’s new Taipei headquarters and announced plans to build the world’s first large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer in Taiwan. In Taipei, Huang’s announcement was welcomed as a milestone for Taiwan’s tech industry. However, beneath the excitement lies a significant question: Can Taiwan’s electricity infrastructure, especially its renewable energy supply, keep up with growing demand from AI chipmaking? Despite its leadership in digital hardware, Taiwan lags behind in renewable energy adoption. Moreover, the electricity grid is already experiencing supply shortages. As Taiwan’s role in AI manufacturing expands, it is critical that
RSS