Sun's sudden appearance in Korean skies at 3:17 p.m., August 7, set off screaming air raid alarms in Seoul, the Korean capital. Broadcast announcers interrupted regular programming to blurt in trembling voices that enemy air attacks were underway.
Civil defense officials stressed that this was not a test, and a panicked but orderly population took shelter; Korea's capital was, for a time, an empty city.
Seventeen minutes later the all-clear sounded, and announcers revealed that the false alarm had been triggered by the penetration into South Korean air space of a Communist Chinese MiG-21 fighter.
ROK interceptors escorted the Red plane to a Korean airbase, where its pilot was questioned. A few hours later, a spokesman announced that the pilot was a mainland Chinese, Sun Tien-chin, 46, and that he had requested political asylum in a third country, confirmed later to be the Republic of China.
In Peking, there was a terse acknowledgment that a Red air force plane was "missing" on a training night. However, the news from Korea was instantly hailed in the streets and government offices of the Republic of China, and featured in news bulletins in the print media and over radio and television.
Sun's arrival in Taipei was hailed at a press conference by ROC government spokesman, Dr. James C. Y. Soong. "Greeting the fervent expectations and concern of all the people of this country, freedom fighter Sun Tien-chin has finally returned to his homeland," he said.
Dr. Soong went on to thank the Korean government for its efforts in the case, and observed in final comment that "there are freedom fighters wherever there is dictatorial Communist rule."
Pilot Sun told the press conference that his early life was marked by a Confucian education, especially in his father's example. Then Sun's father was tortured to death during the great Communist Cultural Revolution. The pilot declared that he had "dashed to freedom neither for money nor position, but for the opportunity to pursue an honest way of life."
"The six young people who seized a Chinese Communist airliner and reached Korea had the same motive as mine-freedom," he went on. "Now I am free, but they are still in a detention house.... I hope the Korean government will help them to get to freedom just as it helped me."
Sun told the nation that though he has no relatives in the ROC, "I feel the affection of relatives now I am here."
The newly arrived freedom seeker was joined on the platform by two other former Chinese Communist pilots, now officers of the ROC air force—Col. Fan Yuan-yen and Maj. Wu lung-ken. Answering a reporter's question, Fan quipped: "The Chinese Communists are stressing the importance of strengthening the ranks of old, middle aged, and young cadres. Well, all three generations are well represented right here." The sally brought smiles from Sun, 46, and Maj. Wu, 26.
Winding up the press conference, Dr. Soong said:
"The arrival of freedom fighter Sun Tien-chin has once again proved that the goals and achievements of Free China have long been applauded and envied by our compatriots on the Chinese mainland. As a matter of fact, when Teng Hsiao-ping recently gushed out another of his united front cliches—to the effect that Taiwan would be allowed to retain the status quo—he was also admitting to the free world that the Communist system has no appeal to free Chinese at all; so we see that, also those Chinese under Communist control are impelled to dash to freedom one after another at the risk of their lives. This is because they have realized that the Communist way of life cannot compare with life in the ROC.
"At the same time, we must point out that the issue of China's reunification is not a matter of which is bigger or smaller, or of which one is swallowing the other. Instead, it is a matter of the mandate of the people—a choice of a way of life. In terms of territory, we are small. But in terms of mandate, we are big. The reunification of China depends on the desires of the people. If Teng Hsiao-ping cannot come to understand these factors, all of his united front exercises must end in fiasco.
"We believe that only if the Chinese Communists renounce their disastrous ideology and embrace our system of freedom, democracy and progress, will the problem of China's reunification be genuinely solved."