`Historic' standoff in Hsinchu

The city will have to build a car park elsewhere if it cannot present a viable design plan, Yeh said.

A survey by Common Wealth magazine in 1998 placed Hsin in the top 30 of the 200 most influential figures in Taiwan's 400-year history.

More than two decades after his retirement in 1975, the school still boasts a long list of prominent alumni -- Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) and another six members of the academy, as well as poet Cheng Chou-yu (鄭愁予) and science fiction writer Chang Hsi-kuo (張系國) -- an achievement that many credit to Hsin's educational principles. The struggle to preserve cultural heritage sites has been an uphill battle in Taiwan, especially because many local governments view them merely as obstacles to their construction projects.

Last month, Taipei City's Cultural Affairs Bureau designated Four Four South village (四四南村), an early post-war era military compound facing demolition, as "historic architecture" (歷史建物) instead of classifying it as a "historic relic" (古蹟), the standard term for cultural heritage sites.

Conservationists have called the decision a fudge, saying that the kind of legal protection "historic architecture" can enjoy is anything but clear.

In May of last year, the Wuku Temple (五穀宮), a 260-year-old Hakka temple in Miaoli County, was razed in a blitz move by its owners, who wanted to build a new temple.

In June, the Control Yuan decided to impeach Miaoli County commissioner Fu Hsueh-peng (傅學鵬) for failing to announce the temple's status under pressure from its owners. The temple had been designated as a heritage site by the Ministry of the Interior in 1997.