Dragon Fire

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Square, Taipei, Taiwan

The air-raid sirens began as columns of school-children filed through into Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Square. The palace at the head of the square, with its white walls and blue Chinese-style roof, housed a bronze statue of Chiang Kai-Shek. Although defeated by Mao Zedong, he had created this defiant island state which was now admired by Western democracies and Asian economic tigers alike. Soldiers stood solemnly on guard unaffected by the commotion going on around them. Even when the siren sounded, they did not look up. On either side of the square were the National Theatre and National Concert Hall and the square itself was used by thousands on special occasions. They gathered in 1992 for the first direct elections to the legislature, in 1996 for the first presidential elections and now, as Taiwan was about to declare independence, it was only fitting that the occasion be marked in Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Square. School-children, unprepared and unrehearsed, some clutching lunch boxes, stood in pairs, holding hands nervously, while their teachers worried about how to arrange them. Officials handed out the red and blue Taiwanese flag for them to wave and a band started up with a ceremonial regiment from the army. To hold everyone’s attention were huge screens strung up so they could see one from wherever they were, showing proceedings in the nearby Parliament buildings, where the Legislative Yuan was debating the vote on independence.

A decade earlier, the National Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority of 261 to 8 to eliminate Taiwan’s status as a province of China. By doing so, the Assembly was taking another tentative step towards complete independence. As a province, Taiwan accepted that it was part of mainland China. It appointed a governor and had its own provincial assembly, and the decision to end the facade meant severing yet another link of its bothersome relationship with the mainland.

The sirens did not create great consternation in the square. They were a regular element of city life in Taipei, as were the anti-aircraft batteries on the roofs of tall buildings. It was only when the children saw the streak of a missile flaming skywards and pointed excitedly that the teachers recognized something was wrong. Police from the cordon ran in and began the fruitless task of herding the children towards an air-raid shelter, and by the time the third Patriot missile had been fired, they were running in terror, but still with discipline, in pairs, holding hands, as they had been taught to since they were in kindergarten. Then Taiwanese fighter planes screamed overhead, so loud that people put their hands to their ears, and stopped dead in their tracks to watch, hoping that they alone would save them from the danger in the skies.

As soon as the planes had gone, a shrill electronic screeching came from the big screens around the square. The pictures juddered and you could see panic break out in the Parliament, that second-long expression on faces, the first instinctive movement of escape, before the screens went to black. Then the square shook. The troops broke formation and ran towards the rumbling noise of the explosion. Dust and then smoke rose up into view. Teachers and children screamed together, their lunch boxes falling to the ground, some losing their sandals, running, but not sure where, and then their sounds drowned out by more fighter planes flying low and loud over the centre of the city.

Two Chinese missiles scored a direct hit on the Parliament building, killing dozens of deputies and stopping the debate before the vote on independence had been taken. For President Tao, it was a constitutional master stroke. He had struck a civilian target at the heart of Taipei, as his military commanders had wanted. The dead were legitimate targets, and the law which would have embarrassed his presidency more than anything else remained off the statute books.