President William Lai (賴清德) is to preside over a round of celebrations to be staged on Sunday at the Republic of China (ROC) Military Academy to mark the 100th anniversary of its founding, the nation’s armed forces announced yesterday.
To mark the academy’s centennial, the Kaohsiung-based academy is to hold its main celebrations in the morning with a large-scale march featuring military cadets, Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Chen Chien-yi (陳建義) said at a Ministry of National Defense news conference.
Along with the cadets, ROC Military Academy honor graduates would be dressed in a range of the academy’s former uniforms, including those worn when the academy was based in China, to pay tribute to its founding and 100 years of tradition, Chen said.
Photo courtesy of the Army Command Headquarters via CNA
Lai is to preside over the celebrations, while special guests, including former ROC Military Academy superintendents, ex-defense ministers, representatives from military academies in allied countries and others, are also scheduled to attend, Chen added.
The academy is to hold an open-house event in the afternoon featuring a series of exhibitions on its history and achievements over the past century, Chen said.
Previously known as the Whampoa Military Academy, the military educational institute was founded on June 16, 1924, in Whampoa — also known as Huangpu, Guangzhou, in China’s Guangdong Province.
The academy later relocated to Nanjing and Chengdu. At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, together with the ROC government, the academy relocated to Taiwan.
It reopened in 1950 in southern Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山) under the name the ROC Military Academy. The original Guangzhou site is now a museum.
Separately yesterday, Veterans Affairs Council Minister Yen De-fa (嚴德發) confirmed that China’s Central Military Commission has approached retired generals in Taiwan and invited them to attend its centennial celebration of the Whampoa Military Academy as part of its “united front” campaign.
Local media reports said that a number of retired generals are set to visit the academy’s former site in Guangzhou where the Chinese government is to mark the institution’s centennial on Sunday.
Yen was asked by reporters whether the government had prepared for the possibility of retired generals attending the celebration in Guangzhou being used by China as propaganda.
The minister said that the commission had approached some retired generals and invited them to attend the event.
The council sees this as a “united front” tactic by the Chinese government, he added.
The council has contacted some veterans who plan to attend the celebration in Guangzhou, reminding them not to give interviews or attend political events, and to be careful not to leak personal information, he said.
Veterans visiting Guangzhou for the occasion do so as individuals, and the council has not heard of any retired military personnel going as part of a tour group, he said.
Yen called on retired generals attending the Guangzhou event to heed the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) and national security laws.
Article 9-3 of the act stipulates that nobody who previously held the rank of major general or higher shall participate in any ceremony or activity held by a Chinese political party, government agency or the Chinese military that could compromise Taiwan’s national dignity.
Conduct harmful to national dignity refers to acts such as saluting the flag or emblems of the People’s Republic of China, singing its national anthem or honoring other symbols of its political authority.
Those found to have contravened this rule risk having their pensions suspended or stripped and recalled, in addition to a potential fine of NT$20,000 to NT$10 million (US$619 to US$309,310).
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