A statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in Taipei’s Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) was yesterday found decapitated.
The statue in Yang-ming Park was beheaded and had red paint smeared over it with a message saying: “228 mastermind” and “serial killer.”
A pro-independence group called the Taiwan Nation Founding Engineering Team (台灣建國工程隊) claimed responsibility for the incident.
Photo provided the Taiwan Nation Founding Engineering Team
“Chiang Kai-shek was the mastermind of the 228 Massacre. It is a universally accepted fact that he was one of the ‘big four murderers’ in history,” the group said in a statement.
“Allowing statues of murderer Chiang to be erected and worshiped in Taiwan is a disgrace,” it added.
The move was to “appease the ghost” of Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta — known among Taiwanese as the “Father of the Chianan Irrigation System,” the group said, in reference to the beheading of a Hatta statue near Tainan’s Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫) on Sunday.
“Cut down one of ours and we will cut down countless of yours,” the group said.
Center director Sung Fu-hua (宋馥華) said the Taipei Police Department’s Beitou Precinct is investigating the matter.
The owner of the Yang-ming Park shop reported the defaced statue at about 8am yesterday to the Floriculture Experiment Center, which manages the park, Sung said.
“People throw paint at the Chiang statue in front of the floral park every year on Feb. 28,” she said.
The center had hired guards to protect the statue at night, but only recently ended the practice, she said.
The center said it covered the statue so visitors would not be disturbed.
“The head has yet to be found,” Sung said.
Sung said that vandalizing public property is an indictable crime, urging people not to flout the law with similar offenses.
Additional reporting by Huang Chien-hau
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
IN THE MIDDLE: Some of the lawmakers defended the trip as an opportunity for investment, cooperation and to see models that could help modernize Panama A planned trip by some Panamanian lawmakers to Taiwan has unleashed the latest diplomatic spat with China as the Central American country tries to navigate the turbulent waters between the Asian superpower and the US. The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US ambassador to the country on Wednesday criticized China’s diplomats in Panama for asking the lawmakers to cancel their trip to Taiwan, with the ministry accusing the Chinese embassy of “meddling” in its internal affairs. That followed comments from Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino a week earlier saying that the planned Taiwan trip did not have the approval of
RSS