Academics from China, Japan and the US and local experts took up the challenge of ranking the performance of the eight most powerful men who steered the destiny of China and Taiwan for nearly a century at an international symposium in Taipei yesterday.
The non-governmental Japan Research Institution, founded by former presidential advisor Hsu Chieh-lin (
To compare the eight men's leadership, the symposium divided them into four pairs according to their chronological order.
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was compared with his chief communist rival, Mao Zedong (毛澤東); Chiang Kai-shek's son, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), with Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平); former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) with former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao were grouped because of their often-disputed roles as the founding fathers of the current governments in Taiwan and China, whereas the Generalissimo's son, who succeeded his father as Taiwan's president, was compared with Deng, because both had implemented reforms with far-reaching impacts.
The symposium described Lee and Jiang's tenure as transitional periods for their countries and tried to guess where Chen and Hu, the two nations' current leaders, will lead their peoples while facing the challenges ahead.
The eight invited speakers discussed historical accounts of the leaders and awarded points out of a possible 100 to each of the leaders.
Hu was the overall winner, with 92 points. Chiang Ching-kuo, with 89 points, had the highest score among the Taiwanese leaders. His father earned 80 points, while Lee and Chen were respectively given 70 and 75. Mao got 85 points, Deng 90 and Jiang 81.
Hsu, who delivered a speech on Chiang Kai-shek, described the Generalissimo as "a man failing to unify China" and "a magician in playing international politics."
Hsu applauded Chiang Kai-shek's timely response to the US's plot to replace him with Taiwan Provincial Governor Wu Guo-jen (
Chiang Kai-shek had cemented his reign in Taiwan by foiling several such attempts partly motivated by the US to overthrow him. Hsu said the Generalissimo had been very alert when handling political crises.
Jay Taylor, author of The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan, said Chiang Ching-kuo's personality enabled him to carry out various reforms when most immigrants from China were still reluctant to give up their high positions in many government agencies.
Taylor, who was a specialist on Asia in the US Foreign Service and lived in Taiwan for five years in the early 1960s, said: "Democracy is Chiang Ching-kuo's special heritage. It is special because Chiang Ching-kuo was also the architect of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) authoritarian regime. He was the executioner of the White Terror period from 1949 to the early 1950s," Taylor said.
It is estimated that the police gunned down about 18,000 to 28,000 people during this period, Taylor said.
However, Taylor said after spending many years studying Chiang Ching-kuo, he was deeply convinced that "democracy, equality and compassion" were remarkable elements in the former president's personality.
RSS