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Government will seek agreement with Chiang family

Minister without Portfolio Huang Hwei-chen (黃輝珍) said on Tuesday that the government would work toward an agreement with the Chiang family of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son, late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), regarding their interment before they are relocated to their mausoleums.

He said that until a consensus was reached on a relocation project, the Ministry of National Defense would continue to maintain the Taoyuan County park in which the two mausoleums are located, including dispatching military police to patrol the area and increase security.

Huang said the Legislative Yuan had spent NT$30 million (US$924,300) in taxpayers' money to build tombs for the former leaders at the Wuchishan military cemetery in suburban Taipei in 2005, but added that a relocation plan was suspended pending further negotiations with the family.

The ministry closed the two mausoleums on Dec. 24 and subsequently removed the military guards stationed there, sparking concern over who would assume management of the sites.

The Cabinet has explored several measures to address the matter -- including relocating the mausoleums and requesting that the Taoyuan County Government take over the management of the site -- an anonymous source said.

The source said that takeover measures would be adopted only if the family disagreed with the relocation.

Members of the Chiang family have expressed divergent opinions on the issue, the source said, quoting a statement by Chiang Fang Chih-yi (蔣方智怡), Chiang Ching-kuo's daughter-in-law, saying that the remains should be buried in their hometown in China rather than in the military cemetery outside Taipei.

Chiang Ching-kuo's son John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), who is running in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, had said he would visit former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) after the election to ask him for help on the matter.

Demos Chiang (蔣友柏), the great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, told the media recently that the remains should be interred at the military cemetery according to usual practice if the government recognizes that the two Chiangs were presidents of Taiwan.

If the administration no longer wants to take care of the mausoleums, the family would follow the wishes of the two late rulers and have their remains cremated and returned to their birthplace in Fenghua City, Zhejiang Province, he said.

During an interview with BBC Chinese.com last month, Demos Chiang said the statue of Chiang Kai-shek was the fourth-largest in the world after those of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong (毛澤東).

"The establishment of the statue was wrong. Building a statue and a memorial hall for a national leader immediately after his death has nothing glorious about it," he said during the interview. "A person is truly a mighty leader if people want to set up a statue and memorial hall for you 50 or 100 years after you died."

In an article published on Tuesday, Demos Chiang condemned Chiang Kai-shek for his direct role in the murder of hundreds of thousands of people between 1921 and 1948, but challenged those who criticized Chiang Ching-kuo as a "dictator."

"If [my grandfather] was truly a dictator, why would he have lifted bans on many things in his late years, decisions that contributed to the development of a democratic system [in Taiwan]?" he said.

Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
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