Article 9-3 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) is colloquially known as the “Wu Sz-huai” clause. It prohibits military officers who carried the rank of major general or higher from participating in any “ceremony or activity ... [that] harm[s] the national dignity.” It was named after Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), a retired Republic of China (ROC) military lieutenant general, after he attended a ceremony in Beijing in 2017, stood for the Chinese national anthem and listened to a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Former navy lieutenant commander Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩) caused a controversy when he attended the opening of the Zhuhai Airshow on Tuesday last week, an annual event in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) showcases the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) latest military equipment. Lu told Chinese media that he wanted to show Taiwanese “how strong ‘our China’ has become.”
Lu is not subject to the Wu Szu-huai clause because he had a rank lower than major general. This led Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) to propose an amendment to the act to lower the threshold to Lu’s rank.
While Wu’s actions were understandable, as he is unapologetically pro-China and dyed-in-the-wool deep blue, Lu’s case is more puzzling. Lu has written extensive and frequent analyses of the strength and capabilities of the PLA, but not in a gloating or proud manner. Instead he cautioned Taiwan and provided recommendations to the DPP government. English translations of his work have been published in the Taipei Times from submissions to the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). He wrote about the danger of PLA movements around Taiwan while the US was distracted by the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd protests (“Learning from a war that never was,” Aug. 31, 2020, page 6), he warned about the growing technological capabilities of the PLA to execute a “space war” (“China’s space threat a valid worry,” Nov. 13, 2021, page 8) and he advocated Taiwan’s military preparedness for possible PLA invasion attempts, praising then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for visiting the 66th Marine Brigade to boost troop morale (“Tsai did no wrong in military visit,” June 12, 2022, page 8). In the article about Tsai, he praised the “iron will to defeat the invaders” of Ukraine and added that Taiwan “must remain vigilant at all times and must root out Chinese collaborators.”
That does not sound like a CCP fellow traveler, a PLA champion or an anti-DPP, anti-Taiwan “separatist.” Lu is no Wu. Or at least he was not when he wrote the articles. Has something changed?
In response to criticism about his words in Zhuhai, Lu has said that he was only speaking the truth about what he saw at the airshow — that it was an impressive array of military equipment and show of strength. Moreover, he was not breaking the law by doing so.
The crux of the matter is that he said “our China” (我們中國), a phrase that is as politically and ideologically charged as it can be. It could be translated as “we Chinese” or “our China”; he did not specify the People’s Republic of China or the Republic of China. How is talking collectively about “our China” different from the ideology of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the national concept that the ROC Constitution provides a legal basis for?
While not defending Lu’s wording or the appropriateness of his comments, the issue exposes the schizophrenic nature of a nation that is not at all clear on how to define “our China.”
Perhaps more insidious is the idea that “our China” being powerful was framed in the context of military might alone and not in the context of the inherent, brittle weakness of an authoritarian, Leninist regime.
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