National Chengchi University yesterday passed a motion at an administrative affairs meeting that called for statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to be removed as part of efforts to promote human rights and transitional justice.
The decision was in response to protests last year, when students plastered a statue of Chiang with fliers containing the names of people killed in the 228 Incident and called for the statue’s removal.
The university was established in Nanjing, China, in 1927 to train people to serve in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and was moved to Taiwan when the party fled China.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Chiang was president of the institution from its establishment until 1947 and was given the honorary title of “perpetual president emeritus.”
Two large bronze statues of Chiang were erected at the university: one in a sitting position in the library and one on horseback at the rear of the school’s campus.
Hsu Tzu-wei (徐子為), head of the university’s graduate students association, said that after last year’s protests by the Wildfire Front student group, university officials repeatedly delayed the removal of the statues.
Opponents said at the meeting that removing the statues would hurt the school’s integrity and international reputation, adding that Chiang’s contributions should be discussed alongside his mistakes.
Removing the statues would be an important first step toward transitional justice, Hsu said, adding that the 228 Incident and the subsequent White Terror era were the direct result of Chiang’s authoritarian rule.
As some of the university’s students are descendants of White Terror victims, honoring Chiang with statues is a second attack on victims’ families, he added.
The four-hour meeting ended with 52 of 68 votes in favor of the statues’ removal, Graduate Institute of Development Studies professor Lee Yeau-tarn (李酉潭) said.
Lee said he would lead a team of seven other professors and three student representatives to discuss how to move forward with relocating the statues to an “appropriate location.”
National Taiwan University history professor Hua Yih-fen (花亦芬) lauded the decision, saying that educators should seek to espouse the values of freedom and democracy, adding that allowing the statues to remain at the university would run counter to those values.
“Fortunately, National Chengchi University was willing to follow sound advice,” she said, adding that transitional justice involves more than just judicial and political elements.
“The removal of the statues honoring Chiang was long overdue,” National Chengchi University associate professor Liu Hung-en (劉宏恩) said.
Regardless of one’s evaluation of Chiang as a political leader, it is absurd to have a president’s statue on campus that is more than three times taller than a person’s height, he said.
If the statues were meant to honor the university’s founder, then every institution should have similar statues, Liu said, adding that the university’s association with a particular party is a source of frustration for many students and professors.
“If it is not a KMT school, why are statues from the period of authoritarian KMT rule kept?” Liu asked.
“What is the reason behind keeping the statue of someone who killed so many people?” asked one student, who declined to be named.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
RSS