A project aimed at declassifying old government records has hit a roadblock after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) refused to allow project coordinators to publish a portion of documents concerning the party.
Academia Historica had announced that formerly confidential government archives dating back to Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) regime would be published online in April next year.
The institute said it hopes to finish compiling 260,000 documents by the end of this month for online publication as part of the government’s efforts toward transitional justice, adding that the collection would be missing a portion of KMT-related documents after the party refused publishing permission.
The institute said the collection includes documents related to the Northern Expedition — a KMT campaign led by Chiang against local warlords in China from 1926 to 1928; the Second Sino-Japanese War; China-Taiwan unification plans; and government suppression of civil strife.
The collection consists of manuscripts, electronic documents, letters, books, maps, photographs and other artifacts, 90 percent of which were confidential, the institute said, adding that it digitized the documents between 2001 and 2011, but could not publish them until now given their confidential nature.
Academia Historica president Wu Mi-cha (吳密察) said that in accordance with the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) all protected documents must be individually audited before they can be made available to the public.
In October, a meeting was convened between the Presidential Office and 18 government departments to expedite the auditing process, Wu said.
As documents dated prior to Dec. 7, 1949, were written in China, it was much easier to convince relevant parties to declassify them, Wu said.
Documents related to military affairs still need to be examined one at a time, Wu said, adding that those concerning foreign relations were deemed too sensitive to be declassified.
Documents concerning Chiang have never been declassified, Wu said, adding that it took him four months at a rate of about 60,000 documents per month to carefully inspect each article.
Wu said that 15,000 documents concerning late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) would be inspected and uploaded to the Web site by June next year, while those concerning former president Yen Chia-kan (嚴家淦) and former vice president Chen Cheng (陳誠) would be inspected at another date.
Once the documents are uploaded they will be accessible from anywhere in the world, including China, Macao and Hong Kong, Wu said, adding that the Web site will incorporate restrictions on downloading or printing the documents in those regions.
Wu said that while he hopes to publish the documents with as much transparency as possible, some have criticized the restrictions on readers in China as an obstruction to academic freedom.
Wu said his team began digitizing documents after securing permission from the KMT’s party history museum, adding that he had assumed that permission extended to documents concerning party affairs.
Wu said that when he wrote to the KMT last month in preparation for posting the documents online he was told that a portion of the documents could not be published.
National Taipei University of Education’s Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture professor Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) said that although the documents are KMT property, in the past there was no distinction made between nation and party.
Lee called on the KMT to cooperate with Wu’s team and allow the government to be transparent.
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