President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is not mentioned in Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) diaries. Nevertheless, perhaps Ma could make a request for Stanford University to return the diaries of both Chiang and his son former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to Taiwan soon.
The two Chiangs ruled Taiwan for almost four decades. Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries recorded his life in Taiwan between 1949 and 1972; Chiang Ching-kuo’s diaries recorded his life in Taiwan between 1949 and 1980. Generally, it is believed that the content of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries is closer to the historical facts and therefore they serve as valuable references.
The two Chiangs’ diaries are kept at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. Only Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries are open to the public. Photocopying or photographing is not permitted, so readers can only transcribe entries themselves with pencil and paper provided by the institution. Many people are interested in what is written in these diaries. Apart from certain Chinese people, Taiwan’s representatives to the US, Control Yuan members, and experts and academics have already looked through or read the diaries. All the major decisions made by Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan were recorded, involving issues such as the 1954 Taiwan Strait crisis, his plan to regain the Chinese mainland, Taiwan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) and its 1971 withdrawal from the UN. Insights about his thoughts on other people can also be found, with a bit of reading between the lines, including on former vice president Chen Cheng (陳誠), general Sun Li-jen (孫立人), former Academia Sinica president Hu Shih (胡適), former foreign minister George Yeh (葉公超) and even former US presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
Ever since 2005, Stanford University has been responsible for the two Chiangs’ diaries, amid conflicting claims of ownership to the materials proposed by the Chiang family members. As a result, the Hoover Institution last year announced its intention to seek clarity from a court in San Jose on the ownership and storage of the diaries.
Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary dated Oct. 11, 1955, that it would be better for Chiang Ching-kuo to preserve his diaries after 1937. This reinforces the claims of ownership of Chiang Ching-kuo’s descendants, most of whom support Ma.
Despite Ma’s hope that the two Chiangs’ diaries can be returned to Taiwan, he has been unable to achieve this, which may well be due to his own incompetence and lack of determination. On this issue, he has failed to take an active and effective approach. Although Taiwan’s Academia Sinica has already transcribed most of the content of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries, Taiwanese experts and academics still have to travel between Taiwan and the US to transcribe them at Stanford University.
The publication of Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries also involves the prickly issue of copyright ownership, and this will likely mean continuing squabbling between the Chiang family members. If Ma wants to resolve the problem, he should discuss with Chiang Ching-kuo’s descendants and Stanford University the possibility of displaying Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries at Taiwan’s Academia Historica, and the possibility of displaying Chiang Ching-kuo’s diaries at the planned Chihai cultural park (七海文化園區) at the site of Chiang Ching-kuo’s former Taipei residence. He should take the first possibility as the first priority. However, he should not forget that the two Chiangs are not the only former presidents of Taiwan, and he should not build a presidential library for Chiang Ching-kuo only.
Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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