A Chinese Communist air force squadron leader, Fan Yuan-yen, piloting a MIG 19 fighter on a patrol mission, made a flight to freedom from Chinchiang, Fukien, to a Tainan airbase in southern Taiwan on July 7. The news stirred the entire world. It touched off waves of joy and excitement throughout the Republic of China, which was observing, on the same day, in a resolute spirit of accomplishing the tasks of national reconstruction, the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Fan's defection was not an isolated event. It indicates that the masses as well as Communist officers on the Chinese mainland hate tyranny and that they are being drawn to the cause of freedom in the Republic of China.
Fan Yuan-yen's flight to freedom expressed in a concrete act his longing for free China. He was aware that the prices for this heroic act might be his life. In recent years the world has been filled with an atmosphere of appeasement. Fan's action should have shaken the appeasement illusionists back to their senses. We recognize that the constitutional government of the Republic of China is where the Chinese people on the mainland place their hope. All our compatriots should unite and double our efforts in self-reliance. The sacred mission of reconstructing a new China under the Three Principles of the People is ours to accomplish.