The good news for Chiang Kai-shek (
The statues of Chiang that had been a ubiquitous feature of the nation's streets, parks and military bases have been subjected to increasingly diffident treatment since power transferred from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2000.
DPP legislators have asked the Ministry of National Defense to move all of the statues at its bases indoors before the anniversary of the 228 Incident at the end of this month. The party is also working to have Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall renamed "Taiwan Democracy Hall." After a report last year on the 228 Incident placed the blame for the incident on Chiang and with the coming 60th anniversary of the incident, anti-Chiang sentiment has seen something of a revival.
Many Taiwanese grew up being told that the dictator was the "savior of the people and a hero of the world."
But Taiwan has democratized, power has shifted and society isn't obliged to suffer KMT brainwashing any longer.
Now Taiwan can freely gather the facts and decide what Chiang's legacy should be.
After decades of reflection, Taiwan's negative view of Chiang has grown firmer. While in China, Chiang succeeded in leading the Northern Expedition to defeat the warlords and unify China. But Chiang was a warlord himself who fostered corruption and civil strife in his quest for power.
Although he led the Nationalists against the Japanese, his rule remained unstable after the Japanese defeat, ultimately leading to civil war in China and the Nationalists' retreat to Taiwan.
Chiang's military crackdown during the 228 Incident led to massive loss of life. The purges of the White Terror era that followed led to the killing and imprisonment of many dissidents and activists.
Chiang always considered himself a visitor and viewed Taiwan as just a base for an invasion to recapture China. He was never accepted in the same way as his reformist son Chiang Ching-kuo (
Like many things, power is fleeting. With the loss of the influence that elevated Chiang to his position as dictator, the adulation he received earlier has all but disappeared.
Opinions have always been polarized on Chiang's rule, but a democratic Taiwan should make an even-handed assessment of his historical position.
An even-handed assessment is based on facts. It is a fact that Chiang had tens of thousands of Taiwanese killed. It is a fact that he had thousands more imprisoned, ripping them away from their families because they dared to challenge their oppressor. It is a fact that the KMT, the world's wealthiest political party, amassed assets during Chiang's corrupt rule by stealing them from Taiwanese, their rightful owners.
An even-handed assessment was delayed by years of KMT rule and it has taken seven long years for the DPP to remove the statues.
But better late than never. The government should let Taiwanese society freely discuss what Chiang's legacy should be. The statues are relatively unimportant in themselves, but while some might see them as representing Chiang as a hero, others will see the statues as proof of the KMT's efforts to keep Taiwanese in a state of symbolic subjugation.
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
RSS