The name plaque at National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall will be removed and replaced with the original Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall plaque by the end of July, Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) said yesterday.
Lu told a press conference at the ministry that the decision was in accordance with the law and resolutions passed by the Legislative Yuan.
Lu was referring to the Cabinet’s scrapping of a draft National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall organic act on Aug. 22 and the legislature’s agreement on Dec. 4 that the government withdraw a proposal to abolish the Organic Act of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂組織條例).
The legislature also resolved during its review of the central government’s fiscal budget request for this year that “the name of National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall should be changed to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.”
A resolution passed by the legislature on Tuesday last week said the ministry should replace the name plaque at the main building of the hall as soon as possible.
In 2007, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration renamed the memorial as part of a campaign to rename monuments and places that honored dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
The move was controversial in part because the changes were made without legislative approval. The replacement of the plaque at the hall led to scuffles between pan-blue and pan-green supporters, leaving a TV cameraman seriously injured.
“The ministry will first submit a plan for the name change and reuse [of the plaque] to the Council for Cultural Affairs and the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Taipei City Government in accordance with the Cultural Assets Protection Act (文化資產保護法) and related regulations,” Lu said.
Changing the plaque is expected to cost about NT$1 million (US$29,700), he said.
Lu said that although Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) said in August last year that the ministry would not change the plaque unless a public forum organized by the ministry reached a consensus in favor of the change, no public forum was arranged.
Lu said this was because the majority of experts invited to a separate forum on educational issues felt that a forum gauging public opinion on the plaque change could increase tensions between supporters of different political parties.
“As for the ‘Liberty Square’ inscription at the entrance to the hall, no changes will be made to it since the square plays an important role in Taiwan’s democratic and cultural development,” Lu said.
The inscription will remain unchanged “so that [the public] can keep a shared memory of the development,” Lu said.
Lu said the honorary guard performances previously held at the memorial hall would also resume on Saturday at the suggestion of “tourism businesses, elected representatives and the public.”
“The ministry is a government branch and should do things in accordance with the law. The ministry has done its best to make the most appropriate decision and drawn up detailed plans [regarding the plaque change] to maintain social harmony. We hope this will put an end to the controversy and that the matter will not cause more fighting among members of the public,” Lu said, adding that the ministry’s decision would stand up to scrutiny.
When asked how the ministry would prevent possible tensions as a result of the plaque change, Lu called on the public to be “tolerant” and refrain from engaging in clashes over the change.
TENSE SITUATION: If the storm does not bring rain, Taiwan might have to wait until next month amid water scarcity in the center and south, an expert said Typhoon Surigae is to bring rain to the nation’s east coast and mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan from Wednesday to Friday, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 1,170km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip. The radius of the storm was 280km, and it was moving northwest at 9kph, with a maximum wind speed of 198kph. The bureau forecasts that the storm would switch to a northerly direction when approaching the east coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines on Wednesday, CWB forecaster Lin Ding-yi (林定宜) said, adding that Surigae would
SEEKING CLARITY: Some members of the US delegation asked KMT legislators in a meeting to address their party’s position on the so-called ‘1992 consensus,’ sources said A US delegation tasked by US President Joe Biden to reaffirm the country’s commitment to its partnership with Taiwan yesterday wrapped up a three-day visit to Taipei. Former US senator Chris Dodd, former US deputy secretaries of state Richard Armitage and James Steinberg, and US Department of State Office of Taiwan Coordination Director Dan Biers departed at 11:20am on a private jet. The members of the delegation, all friends of Biden, arrived on Wednesday and met with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and other government officials. During the three-day visit, the delegation also met with six members of the Legislative
Taipei’s street names should reflect a “Taiwanese spirit,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said in an online video released yesterday, in which he asked why many of them are named after locations in China. In a three-minute video uploaded to a Facebook page called “Taiwanese Uncle Ko Wen-je” (台灣阿北柯文哲), the mayor suggested changing the names of Taipei streets. The page’s banner was a photograph of Ko on Jade Mountain’s (玉山) main peak. The page was closed at about noon, about four hours after it was made public. Ko said that street names in the capital named “Ningxia,” “Tibet,” “Beiping” — an old name for
‘AN EXCUSE’: The intent of Beijing’s incursions was ‘intimidation and coercion,’ a senior US official said, adding that China was using the US to justify its actions Chinese carrier drills and stepped-up incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the past few weeks are meant to send a message to Washington to stand down and back off, security sources in Taipei said. The increased activity — which China, unusually, described as “combat drills” on Wednesday — has raised alarm in both Taipei and Washington, although security officials do not see it as a sign of an imminent attack. Rather, at least some of the exercises are practicing “access denial” maneuvers to prevent foreign forces from coming to Taipei’s defense in a war, one official familiar with Taiwan’s security
RSS