Taiwanese retired generals attending Beijing second world war parade should be stripped of pensions, says island’s former premier

Hau Pei-tsun, a former Taiwanese premier who fought against the Japanese in the second world war, says any retired generals from the island who attend a parade in Beijing next week to mark the anniversary of the conflict should be stripped of their pensions.

“If retired generals in the Kuomintang military want to attend Beijing’s war parade that means they are going to endorse Beijing’s propaganda that the Communist Party was the mainstay in the war”, Hau was quoted as saying by the United Daily News.

Beijing has announced that retired Nationalist soldiers from Taiwan will attend the parade in the capital on September 3.

Taiwan’s defence ministry has urged war veterans to stay away from the parade, saying it was Nationalist, or KMT, forces led by Chiang Kai-shek that led China’s resistance against Japan up to 1945.

Nationalist troops later fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war on mainland China to communist forces.

“The eight-year long anti-Japanese war was led by the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek. Historical truth is not allowed to be distorted and falsified in any way,” a statement posted on Taiwan’s defence ministry’s website said. “As a soldier, retired KMT generals should stick to the stance of the [Taiwanese government] and be self-disciplined. Don’t go to mainland China to take part in the Communist Party’s commemorative events.”