The owner of a company that sells Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) figurines yesterday called himself “a 228 victim” after the “announcement without warning” that merchandise bearing Chiang’s likeness were to be pulled off souvenir store shelves at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. However Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said such merchandise can still be bought elsewhere.
The sale of figurines, stationery and accessories bearing Chiang’s likeness constitutes a small percentage of the three souvenir stores’ revenue, the minister said, adding that the hall had spoken to the companies before the measure was carried out, so it should not have affected their rights.
The ministry on Saturday last week announced that the sale of products bearing authoritarian symbols would cease ahead of the passage of amendments to the Organization Act of the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Management Office (國立中正紀念堂管理處組織法) to reinvent the hall, including renaming it.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The KMT held a press conference in Taipei yesterday, at which Lin Sheng-chang (林盛章), chairman of a company that develops merchandise featuring Chiang, said the government had begun a “green terror” campaign.
He accused the minister of lying, saying he had not received advance notice of the measure, nor had the contractor who informed him of the decision.
“I have sold the products for eight years since 2008; they were plain souvenirs for tourists, but they have become the target of [the government’s] ideological policies,” Lin said.
“I do not know where to go with the more than 10,000 figurines still in my warehouse,” he said.
He said his design promotes “cross-strait harmony,” while the ban imposes on the right to create and economic freedom.
The Ministry of Culture said that last year’s revenue from the sale of such merchandise from the hall’s three stores was about NT$4.98 million (US$160,542) out of the stores’ overall revenue of NT$58.2 million.
Revenue from the sale of Chiang figurines was NT$820,000, it said.
The figurines were sold on consignment at the hall, which was only one of the places the company sold its products, the ministry said.
The government respects creative designs made by private firms and their sale, purchase and circulation in the free market, but in an effort to make public space politically neutral, products featuring Chiang will no longer be developed or sold by the government, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang and Yang Ming-yi
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