He looked a little like Jimmy Carter with a short haircut. But he talked a lot differently about the Chinese Communists, although he had been a member of their air force until a few hours before his appearance at a Taipei press conference. Squadron leader Fan Yuan-yen had defected to the Republic of China in his MIG 19 jet fighter, the fifth such flight to freedom in the last 17 years.
His flight had taken off from the Chinchiang air base in Fukien province at 1 p.m. Thursday, July 7. As the four MIGs roared down the Taiwan Straits, Fan suddenly made a turn to the east and sped toward Penghu (the Pescadores) and Taiwan. A radar station at Makung in the Penghu picked up his MIG and alerted the Chinese Air Force. Four free Chinese jet pilots scrambled and made a visual sighting shortly after 2 p.m. Fan dipped his wings and dropped from 20,000 to 7,000 feet. Both actions are prescribed for defecting aircraft. The CAF jets led him to the Tainan Air Base in southern Taiwan for an eventful but safe landing.
The 41-year-old Fan opened the canopy, tossed his cap in the air and waited for instructions. He handed his pistol to Lt. Col. Wang Hung-jen, shook hands and exclaimed: "I couldn't stand it (life on the mainland) any longer." Approaching Tainan, he had told the control power that he was seeking freedom and human rights. Cheering personnel of the Tainan Air Base crowded around the plane. Fan wore dark pants and a yellow shirt. These he subsequently displayed as the shoddy poor quality "uniform" of the Chinese Communist air force. When the commander of the base treated him to coffee in air-conditioned quarters at the base, the defector marveled. "I have never enjoyed such things," he said.
One of the top-ranking officers greeting Fan shortly after his arrival was General Wang Sheng, director of the General Political Warfare Department of the Ministry of National Defense. Subsequently, Fan met Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, who formerly headed the Ministry of National Defense. Premier Chiang praised Fan for his courage and congratulated him on his decision to seek freedom and for his successful flight to the Republic of China.
The dramatic flight came at a time when people of free China were concerned about reports of U.S. plans to "normalize relations" with the Chinese Communists. Spirits were lifted. Firecrackers were set off in many parts of the island, hopefully as an augury of further good tidings. Reporters flocked to Tainan to see the plane, which is regarded as the "workhorse" of the Chinese Communist air force. TV provided extensive coverage. People gathered in groups to exchange information and discuss the defection. Newspapers issued extras. Almost everyone knew what had happened an hour after Fan's landing.
On July 8, just 24 hours after the MIG19 put down at Tainan, more than 200 domestic and foreign reporters assembled at the Chinese Armed Forces Officers' Club in Taipei for a press conference with Fan, who was accompanied by Dr. Ding Mou-shih, director general of the Government information Office. Relaxed, often smiling and never at a loss for words, Fan answered more than 100 questions frankly and to the point. He asked the mass media to relay to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance his hope that the United States would urge the Communists to allow his teacher wife and three children to join him in Taiwan. He had not told his family of plans to defect but expressed fear they might be tortured. His son is 13 years old and there are daughters aged 11 and 9.
Fan was motivated to make the freedom flight, he said, by the hope of telling the world what life on the Chinese mainland is really like. "There is no freedom," he said, "and no human rights. In the first years of Communist rule, many people were massacred. They were driven from the towns and villages daily to be slaughtered."
Those who went along with the Communists for a time are no longer so easily deceived, he said. "In the cultural revolution period, military personnel began to disbelieve what they read in People's Daily and other Communist mouthpieces."
Mainland life is miserable, he said, although this may not be understood by foreign visitors who are taken to selected places on carefully stagemanaged tours. He said he has seen people frozen to death, that some people starve and that most are hungry. Although the air force is the elite branch of the Communist military, he received only US$40 a month and a daily ration of four ounces of protein. As a squadron leader, his rank equated to that of a lieutenant colonel.
"Even today, there are parents who sell their children to get something to eat," he said. "Buyers are hard to find. Clothes are scarce and mostly made of cotton. You have to give up old clothes in order to get new ones."
Militarily, Red China is something of a "paper tiger," Fan said, and morale of the armed forces is low. Although a pilot for nearly 20 years, Fan has logged only 1,100 hours of flight time. A Chinese Air Force pilot in Taiwan would nominally accumulate about 1,200 hours in five years.
The Communist air arm is short of both planes and fuel. It is also afraid to trust its own pilots. Fan's MIGl9 was reassembled by the Chinese Communists in 1959, he said. He estimated the number of MIG19s in the Communist air force at some 2,000 and the advanced Russian-made MIG21 at a mere 20 to 30. Both equipment and logistics are inadequate, Fan told questioners.
He thought the Chinese Communists would not find it easy to launch an attack on Taiwan. Many deployments on the coast facing Taiwan are defensive, he added. He himself never received any training in offensive tactics.
Political indoctrination is lengthy and endless in the Communist air force, he said, and has recently dealt with the topic of "defeating the gang of four." Constant purges have undermined military morale, he said, adding: "The purges are a dog-bite-dog business. The people have seen enough to realize that these purges are self-centered power struggles. Mao Tse-tung or Hua Kuo-feng - they are all birds of a feather."
General Wang Sheng had presented Fan with a wrist watch after the Tainan landing. Fan had none, he said, because those made in Shanghai worked for a while, then stopped for a while, and were not worth wearing.
Fan first heard of the Republic of China at the age of 13. But he did not know Premier Chiang Ching-kuo's name until after the death of President Chiang Kai-shek. He said that many revolts have broken out on the mainland and that the people look forward to the return of the free Chinese government.
Information about conditions in the Republic of China circulates by the grapevine, Fan said. Many people in the coastal provinces listen to free Chinese broadcasts. The Chinese Communists are unable to enforce their prohibition against listening. Although the Communists talk of people's rights, these really do not exist, he said. He described "Let one hundred flowers bloom and let one hundred schools of thought contend" as a vicious trick. This campaign was put forward by Mao and some aspects of it have recently been revived by Hua, apparently in an attempt to root out followers of the "gang of four" and anti-Communists.
As the press conference concluded, Fan Yuan-yen raised his right hand to renounce membership in the Chinese Communist party, which he joined in 1960.
Asked what he wished to do, Fan said he would like to join the Chinese Air Force. He later was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and received 4,000 ounces of tax-free gold (worth about US$600,000 at the market price) for bringing the MIG19 to Taiwan. This is in accordance with the set schedule of rewards for air and naval equipment brought from the Communist-held mainland by defectors.
Fan said he was not interested in rewards and that freedom, not money, accounted for his flight. Gifts flowed in, and he asked that the public stop sending them. He did welcome President cigarettes. One of his first requests after landing was for a cigarette. He said he had heard of the President brand, one of Taiwan's best. "I cannot possibly use all the things you are giving me," Fan said. "I'm not someone who is here today and gone tomorrow. I am going to stay with you and fight the Communists."
Four other former Chinese Communist fliers, now commissioned officers in the Chinese Air Force, were among those welcoming Fan to the Republic of China. They are Col. Shao Hsi-yen, who flew an AN-2 transport to Korea in 1961; his co-pilot, Lt. Col. Kao You-tsung; Lt. Col. Lee Hsien-ping, who flew a UT28 bomber to Taiwan 12 years ago; and Lt. Col. Liu Cheng-szu, who flew a MIGl5 to Taiwan in 1962.
Greetings came from Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who is in New York recuperating from illness, and many other dignitaries, including members of the Taipei diplomatic corps. Dr. Ku Cheng-kang, honorary chairman of the World Anti-Communist League, pledged that everything possible would be done to try to get Fan's wife and children out of Red China. Ku expressed hope that Fan would make broadcasts to the mainland.
The days after the press conference were filled with travel and sightseeing. Fan spent a night at scenic Sun Moon Lake and returned to Tainan for a tour of that air base and another at Pingtung.
The modern facilities and aircraft of the Chinese Air Force facilities surprised him, although he had not believed Chinese Communist attempts to denigrate the ROC armed forces.
Fan met with Defense Minister Kao Kuei-yuan and Lt. Gen. Szeto Fu, the commander of the Chinese Air Force. After his tour, he was given a couple of days to rest up.
Upon landing, Fan turned over maps of mainland coastal defenses to the Chinese Air Force. He was frank in his descriptions of the Communist military community. Even so, the CAF and the Ministry of National Defense found no reason to debrief the defector in any great detail. Most of what he knew had already been reported by intelligence agents.
His coming brought a boost in morale rather than major military secrets. The press conference was broadcast in its entirety by the three all-island television networks and repeated the next day. Close-up shots of the MIG 19 were also shown.
Information specialists of the Ministry of National Defense lost no time in getting word of what happened to the people of the mainland. Radio stations told the story. So did leaflets dropped from high-flying balloons that can reach all parts of continental China.
Junior high school students competing for seats in senior high schools had their chance to say a word about Fan. One of their examination questions asked for essays on the meaning of the defection.
Mass media coverage of Fan's flight and subsequent events was extensive throughout the world - with the exception of mainland China. Radio Moscow broadcast the news without comment. All Japanese newspapers played up the story. Chinese communities throughout the world were jubilant.
Hongkong papers said that Fan carried confidential documents and that these might influence the United States as it pursues efforts to "normalize relations" with the Chinese Communists. One Hongkong paper declared, "The defection proves that no matter how severe the political indoctrination, the freedom of individuals cannot be suppressed."
The New York Times gave prominent display to the news and featured Fan as a "headliner" in its Sunday Review of the Week section.
The Christian Science Monitor pointed out that human rights do not exist in Red China, and deplored that so little attention "has been paid to the authoritarian aspects of Maoist society and the political, economic and cultural suppression of 900 million people."
News World of Los Angeles declared "This is a great event for the cause of human rights" and "apparently embarrassing. to the (Carter) administration." This paper said: "If human rights are to be the cornerstone of our foreign policy, then political expediency and financial profit must take a back seat. If human rights is subordinate, then Carter's foreign policy is a cruel deception to all those millions who look to America for hope of freedom and a better life."
President Carter received the news in a briefing from Zbigniew Brezinski. There was no official U.S. comment.
Editorial comment was generally favorable throughout the free world. Many overseas Chinese papers pointed out that so long as the Republic of China on Taiwan exists, there is hope for the restoration of freedom on the Chinese mainland.
Fan himself said that many members of the Chinese Communist air force are waiting for an opportunity to defect. But the vigilance of the Communist authorities is difficult to get around. Everyone is set to spy on everyone else. This was why he dared not take even family members into his confidence.
Among the people of Taiwan, this small but fearless man became an instant folk hero. He is from Szechwan and his Mandarin was accented. That made no difference. He was taken to the heart of an embattled people who are determined to fight for their liberties and those of their compatriots. Fan Yuan-yen had wagered his life on the hope of being able to fight with them.
Opinion in the Republic of China viewed the defection as a message to Jimmy Carter. One newspaper put it this way: "Carter has said that he is continuing to pursue the goal of 'normalization of relations' with the Chinese Communists. At the same time, he has said through his press secretary that no decision has been made to derecognize the Republic of China.
"What we ask President Carter to keep in mind is the stamp of approval he would be giving the Chinese Communist regime with the act of 'normalization. '
"The recognition of the United States would make it more difficult for the oppressed people of the mainland to continue striking blows for freedom. In the absence of the Republic of China and Taiwan, where could freedom fighter Fan Yuan-yen have gone? President Carter, who has stood up forthrightly for morality and human rights in this imperfect world, ought to do nothing to help fix Communist tyranny on the Chinese people.
"MIG pilot Fan says that is not what the Chinese people of the mainland want. Seventeen million people of Taiwan and 22 million overseas Chinese attest to the same thing. Jimmy Carter should think a little about the lack of human rights - the inability of 900 million people to say anything except through the act of defection - before he moves any closer to 'normalization.'"
Pilot Fan Yuan-yen in effect brought assurance of victory. His free expression of preference at tested that the Republic of China is right and the Chinese Communists are wrong. He aroused new dedication to the premise that the Republic of China's struggle for freedom and against tyranny is worth any sacrifice and must, in the end, surely triumph.