The 601st Brigade of the army’s Taoyuan-based Aviation and Special Forces Command (航特部) is responsible for protecting Taipei and northern Taiwan. Shockingly, an army lieutenant colonel of the brigade, surnamed Hsieh (謝), was detained for recruiting current and retired military personnel to build a spy network to collect national defense secrets for China. As a retired military officer, I cannot help but think of the case of “Tokyo Rose.”
To demoralize US troops and incite war-weariness during World War II, Radio Tokyo (now known as NHK) launched a propagandist program called The Zero Hour, which was hosted by young women with sweet voices who spoke fluent English.
“Don’t you think it’s stupid to go to a remote tropical island and waste your life, while your family is frying up hamburgers at home?” they would say, and “Don’t you want to throw away your guns and just go home?”
Such phrases, broadcast in alluring voices, attracted numerous US soldiers, who nicknamed the broadcasters “Tokyo Rose.”
The program was broadcast widely and achived high ratings, but how effective was the propaganda? Judging from the successive victories of the US troops, they only took the show as an opportunity to enjoy the sweet and enchanting voices of the young women, but their “belief in victory” was unshaken.
More than two decades later, when the situation on the battlefield of the Vietnam War was televised to US households, opposition to the war became mainstream opinion. Many of those whose family members were killed in Vietnam even changed their telephone numbers to avoid harassing calls cursing their lost loved ones as “murderers.”
In World War II, US families of fallen soldiers would hang a gold star in front of their homes to honor them for sacrificing their lives for the country. The difference in public opinion between the wars was huge. Obviously, whether there was a “belief in victory” was key to the different outcomes of the wars.
In the past few years, the Chinese Communist Party’s threat to security in the Taiwan Strait has caused concern in democratic and peace-loving countries around the world, many of which have repeatedly expressed their support for Taiwan.
Even Germany, so far away in Europe, and Canada on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, have followed in the footsteps of the US, Japan, the UK, France and Australia in dispatching warships to maintain security in the Strait, while the EU and other international organizations have also been frequently calling for cross-strait peace.
Compared with more than 70 years ago when Taiwanese did not know whether they would live to see another day, security in the Strait has once again become a global focal point.
Given the current external support, the officers and soldiers who are responsible for defending Taiwan should have been more confident in accomplishing their mission.
However, cases of Chinese espionage, military discipline issues and corruption scandals in the past few years have proven that the military is heading in the opposite direction, making the situation even more difficult. Hopefully, the authorities can quickly counteract these challenges to boost confidence in the military.
Sung Chi-cheng is an assistant professor at Shih Hsin University’s Center for General Education and a former colonel instructor at National Defense University’s War College.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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