Military officials argued yesterday that defector Justin Lin (
Lin, now a well-known economist in China, was treated like the "chosen one" in the late 1970s because of his choice of the military over academia.
His choice was greatly appreciated by military leaders at the time, since it was quite rare to have an academically successful person like Lin volunteer to join the armed forces.
Lin was already a freshman at National Taiwan University (NTU), the country's top university, when he quit and enrolled at the army academy in 1972.
Lin then became a propaganda tool, as the armed services were eager to use Lin to attract talented youth.
Former military leaders like Chief of the General-Staff General Lai Ming-tan (
An army general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they couldn't understand why Lin, who was so honored, would have deserted his post on frontline Kinmen and defect to China in May 1979.
The general also served on Kinmen under Major General Chou Chung-nan (
Despite the incident, Chou still managed to reach the position of commander-in-chief of the Taiwan garrison command.
"There had been no sign which would have indicated that Lin might be planning to defect. After we found Lin missing, we still couldn't be sure where he had gone," the general said.
"According to past custom, the Chinese military would fire propaganda rockets into the air each time a Taiwanese serviceman defected. No such move was made in the wake of Lin's disappearance," he said.
"Since we had no idea what had become of him, for many years we took Lin as missing. He was originally called Lin Cheng-yi (
"Lin admitted around 10 years ago that he was indeed the Taiwanese officer called Lin Cheng-yi. This is evidence we could use against him if he comes back to Taiwan," he said.
An official with the Presidential Office, who had personal contact with Lin, said although Lin is a highly respected economist in China, he is just a propaganda tool to the Beijing government.
"There is no way to know how important Lin is to the Chinese government. But one thing is for sure -- he has been used by Beijing to befriend people from Taiwan, including former government officials," the official said.
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