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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS