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.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
RSS