The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should be converted into a museum because of Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) culpability for the 228 Incident, Academia Sinica associate research fellow and 228 Incident historian Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said yesterday.
“Situating a massive memorial of Chiang in a prime real-estate district of Taipei is not a respectful way to deal with the historical perspectives of all ethnic groups,” he said.
Chiang bore “primary responsibility” for the 228 Incident, and the government should establish a museum of all the Republic of China (ROC) presidents to replace Chiang’s memorial, Chen said.
The 228 Incident refers to massacres beginning on Feb. 28, 1947 that were carried out by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government troops to quell a popular uprising. The massacres marked the beginning of the White Terror era. The number of people killed and missing remains unknown, but some historians have put the figure in the tens of thousands.
Chen said president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) incoming administration is unlikely to want the controversy caused by an attempt to demolish the memorial, after the ferocious opposition the Democratic Progressive Party had to weather in 2007 when then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) renamed the building the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.
Instead, a compromise could be reached by establishing a museum that would give an account of the ROC’s presidents and be a venue for displaying presidential gifts from foreign heads of state and state archival material, Chen Yi-shen said.
As for the bronze statue of Chiang, Chen said that a decision should be made after public debate.
Chang Chiu-wu (張秋梧), a family member of whose died in the 228 Incident, said: “The memorial should be razed,” because the organizer of the massacre should not be celebrated and its demolition would end the anger that families of victims continue to experience.
In related news, the Taiwan National Alliance yesterday issued a statement saying that “to implement transitional justice and restore the historical facts about the 228 Incident, textbooks should clearly state where the responsibility for it should fall.”
Chen Yi-shen, a member of the alliance, called on the government to ask the US’ Hoover Institution to return Chiang’s diaries to Taiwan and to make laws that would allow for the diaries’ publication.
The diaries clearly describe the decisionmaking process that led to the 228 Incident, he said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS