Former commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Army Sun Li-jen (孫立人) was exonerated by the Control Yuan yesterday of a coup d’etat charge dating from 1955, a charge that led to him being detained under house arrest in Taipei for 33 years.
The general fell into disfavor with then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) amid rumors that the US wanted to see Sun replace Chiang.
One of Sun’s officers, Major Kuo Ting-liang (郭廷亮) was arrested in 1955 and tortured into writing a confession that he had been spying for the People’s Republic of China.
Kuo’s confession was then used by Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who was then head of the secret police, as the basis for charges that Sun had harbored communist spies and was plotting a coup d’etat.
Sun was arrested and court-martialed in August 1955. Found guilty, he was placed under house arrest, where he remained until March 1988, following the death of Chiang Ching-kuo, even though Kuo later said he had been coerced into writing the confession and falsifying its date.
The latest Control Yuan probe into the Sun case was led by Lee Ping-nan (李炳南) and lasted a two-and-a-half years.
Lee twice visited the US to examine Chiang Kai-shek diaries archived in the Stanford University Library, and reviewed more than 20,000 pages of documents and original papers from the military’s Political Affairs Department, the Investigation Bureau and the National Archives Administration.
Lee released a report on the probe yesterday that supported Kuo’s claim of torture.
“Kuo was forced to confess under torture and coercion, which took place somewhere between July 9 to 20 [1955]. This can be verified from Chiang Kai-shek’s diary,” Lee said. “But the military forced Kuo to falsely date the confession June 6, 1955. The date was left blank, and was filled in later.”
“Findings from the investigation can exonerate General Sun. It can be proven that Kuo was not a spy, but his confession was forced and falsified,” Lee said.
Sun was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He led his New 38th Division troops to battle victories over the Japanese Imperial Army in Burma during World War II, and was respected by US and British commanders. He became commander-in-chief of the army in 1950. However, Sun was frequently at odds with Chiang Kai-shek’s plan to launch a military invasion “to take back the mainland” from the communists.
After Sun’s arrest in 1955, Chiang Kai-shek appointed a nine-man commission, headed by then-vice president Chen Cheng (陳誠), to investigate the matter. The Control Yuan formed its own five-man commission to investigate.
The nine-man commission declared Kuo guilty of spying and using his relationship with Sun to conspire against the ROC government. However, the Control Yuan’s commission concluded Sun and Kuo had only been preparing a report for Chiang Kai-shek outlining measures to reform the military. It found no evidence of a coup conspiracy.
However, the complete records of that Control Yuan report were only made public in 2001, Lee said.
Sun’s relatives, along with people in military circles and academia, have pressed the government for decades to clear Sun’s name.
Lee said his investigation had found that Kuo was arrested on May 25, 1955, and tortured for more than 10 days, but would not confess.
“Later the military used other ways and inducements to entice Kuo, and thus produced the ‘confession letter’ in which he admitted spying for communist China, and the date was filled in afterwards,” Lee said.
However, Lee said that his investigation showed Kuo was a victim, but had also benefited from his cooperation with the military because his family received a NT$500 monthly stipend from the government.
The fallout from the charges against Sun in 1955 led to the arrest and imprisonment of more than 300 people by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS