A document discovered recently in a safe at the Control Yuan shows that General Sun Li-jen (
Historians have called Sun the greatest Chinese military officer of the 20th century. Fearing political rivalry, however, the general was placed under house arrest by Chiang Kai-shek (
Last August the Control Yuan asked Chu -- who is a research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica -- to re-investigate Sun's case.
FILE PHOTO
According to Chu, the document, which was written by a special investigation team under the Control Yuan in October 1955, shows the Control Yuan was not convinced that Sun was involved in any mutiny. The Control Yuan also believed Sun's subordinates were innocent.
According to the document, the signatures on Sun subordinate Kuo Ting-liang's (
That led the members of the investigation team to write a letter to Chiang, which concluded: "It is impossible for General Sun to start a mutiny against the government."
The Control Yuan, however, was immediately pressured by high-level government officials, saying that no public announcement about the investigation would be allowed.
Sun's case had languished ever since. According to Chu, the investigation file on Sun's case was meddled with. "Many key words or sentences in the file were erased," Chu said.
The recently discovered document is original and is therefore valuable evidence, Chu said.
Chu said he chose to reveal the findings yesterday because it was the 100th anniversary of Sun's birth. He suggested the Control Yuan publish the original document to clear Sun's name.
Sun, born in 1900 in Anhui Province (安徽省) , was a graduate from the prestigious Virginia Military Institute. Fighting against the Japanese from 1936 to 1945, Sun became known as "The Ever Victorious General." He was also awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1942 for rescuing 7,500 British soldiers in a battle.
After the KMT lost the civil war with the Communists and fled to Taiwan, Sun was promoted to commander (
The troops became a mainstay for the KMT and loyal to Chiang and his son. Sun was later promoted to head of the Army General Headquarters. In 1955, however, Sun's subordinate, Kuo Ting-liang, was accused of treason and was arrested. Sun was forced to resign his post and was put under house arrest the same year.
Sun's family and friends, as well as some local media, tried for years to redress what they saw as a miscarriage of justice.
After Chiang Ching-kuo's death in 1988, the Control Yuan decided to re-investigate Sun's case. Only two months later, on March 20, then Minister of National Defense Cheng Wei-yuan (鄭為元) officially announced that Sun was a free man. Two years later Sun died at his house in Taichung on Nov. 19, 1990.
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