Colonel Pan Ai-chu (潘愛珠), deputy director of the mainland affairs research division of the Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB), will soon become the first Tai-wanese woman to be promoted to the rank of major-general in more than 40 years of Taiwanese military history.
Pan, who has been involved in the study of Chinese intelligence since joining the MIB more than 20 years ago, will be promoted to the directorship of the MIB's mainland affairs research department on Saturday.
As the post is traditionally reserved for an officer with the rank of major-general, Pan will be promoted to the rank of major-general at the beginning of next year in accordance with military service regulations.
Military sources said Pan has already passed the physical examinations required for promotion to the rank of general.
As part of the promotion formalities, the sources said, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Chief of the General Staff General Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) and General Teng Chu-lin (鄧祖琳), director of the Political Warfare Department under the Ministry of National Defense (MND), will meet with Pan over the next few days.
The MND would not comment on Pan's promotion, saying only that the ministry does not normally announce military personnel changes until after they are formalized.
Pan, who has a master's degree from the military-run Fuhsingkang College's Graduate Institute of Political Science, has received much acclaim from the government and military leadership for her analyses of mainland intelligence and suggestions on the development of relations across the Taiwan Strait, military sources said.
According to MIB sources, Colonel Pan's analytical reports were very useful during three critical periods -- the 1996 Tai-wan Strait crisis, former President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) defining of cross-strait ties as a special "state-to-state" relationship in July 1999, and last year's presidential election, which ushered in Taiwan's first peaceful transition of power.
Pan will be Taiwan's third female general. The first was Chiang Yi-ying (姜毅英), a close aide to General Tai Li (戴笠), director of the MIB's precursor, known as the "chun-tung-chu" (軍統局) in Chinese. Chiang impressed her superiors with many remarkable accomplishments while developing clandestine radio stations for intelligence broadcasting in the regions of Hong Kong and South-east Asia during the eight-year War of Resistance against Japan-ese Aggression.
The second women general was Major Chou Mei-yu (周美玉), a military medical officer who contributed a great deal to the establishment of the National Defense Medical College. Chou was promoted to major-general in 1958 and retired from military service in 1972.
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