The military has seen 20 cases of defections to China since 1949, Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) revealed Wednesday at the legislature.
Among the cases, 17 are with the air force, two with the army and one with the navy, Tang said.
The defections took place between 1949 and 1989, and no case has been reported since.
Tang released the figure at a meeting of the Defense Committee of the legislature in response to inquiries from an opposition lawmaker about the number of defections to China.
Tang did not reveal any further details of the defections and yesterday the Ministry of National Defense refused to elaborate on the minister's figure.
The air force also declined to speak on the issue.
However a book published by Taipei-based Wings of China describes in detail most of the air force's defections.
In 1949 alone, three planes -- a C-47 transport, an AT-6 trainer and a PT-17 trainer -- were flown to China from bases in Chiayi, Kaohsiung and Taichung, according to the book Defections from Formosa. A total of six air-force personnel defected with the three planes.
Over each of the next seven years, excluding 1952, there were two to three defections on a variety of aircraft.
In 1963, Captain Hsu Ting-tse (
In 1981, Major Huang Chih-chen (黃誠) committed the first defection to China in an F-5 series plane. The plane was carrying another pilot, Hsu Chiu-lin (許秋麟). Huang forced Hsu to parachute before landing in Fujian's Fuzhou.
The most recent defection took place in 1989, when Major Lien Hsien-shun (
A defense official, who wished to remain anonymous, said it is hard to pinpoint why these military personnel betrayed their country since none of them had displayed any unusual signs prior to their defection.
"But from some of these defectors, we found clues. Huang Chih-chen, for instance, was heavily in debt for some time before he flew to China," the official said.
"Lin Hsien-shun was found to have serious family problems before he defected. We are not sure of the connections between personal problems and defections. But the finding has helped us prevent defections by plane from happening again," he said.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
RSS