Retired military officers planning to attend the Whampoa Military Academy centennial celebrations in China could pose a national security risk to Taiwan, an official said yesterday.
Whampoa Military Academy was founded in 1924 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Guangzhou, China. Taiwanese and Chinese armed forces both lay claim to the institution’s lineage.
Taiwan and China are expected to hold rivaling centennial events later this month.
Photo: Taipei Times
Retired Taiwanese officers attending Beijng’s ceremony would be asked to get residency documents, driver’s licenses and bank accounts in China, the official said on condition of anonymity.
These veterans would be given cellphones with telecom subscriptions and predownloaded applications, they said.
China claimed these measures were intended to give the veterans the means to travel by air and high-speed rail, the official said.
This is a pretext, they said, adding that the bank accounts, devices and apps are aimed at enabling Chinese espionage as Taipei cannot monitor China’s financial institutions or telecom system, they said.
The Taiwanese veterans would give China the necessary information to register as Chinese nationals living in the “Taiwan area,” same as Hong Kong and Macau residents, the official said.
The request for identity documents is a bureaucratic maneuver aimed at upholding the narrative that Taiwan is a part of China, they said.
The retired officers’ itinerary — a product of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee — would feature World War II monuments, a memorial for the Nanjing Massacre, and the academy’s former site, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
The selection of these sites was designed to build a narrative saying Taiwan and China’s militaries are the same entity, and Japan is the common enemy for the two sides across the Taiwan Strait, they said.
The Taiwanese officers attending China’s celebrations were people who took specialist courses at the academy and not Whampoa graduates, the source said, adding that none of them rose to general officer rank.
China said its Whampoa event is to draw more than 3,000 retired Taiwanese officers, but Taiwanese officials put the figure at fewer than 100.
More than 10,000 active and retired officers would attend Taiwan’s Whampoa event at the Military Academy in Kaohsiung, Veterans Affairs Council Minister Yen De-fa (嚴德發) said.
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
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
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
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