As the US wrestles with the problem of what to do with monuments to a divisive history, Taiwan has found a solution — a park dedicated to unwanted statues of a controversial figure from its past.
More than 200 memorials to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), the former Nationalist leader who is revered as a hero by some but despised as a dictator by others, have been quietly removed from schools and government buildings and brought together in a serene lakeside spot.
Each day, tourists roam among the 253 figures at the Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park, which come in a variety of colors — some teal, some bronze and some copper red.
Photo: AFP
The largest piece is an imposing figure of a seated Chiang, removed from a government office in Kaohsiung in 2007.
Close by are two sculptures of Chiang’s son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who along with his father oversaw the White Terror era.
Today the statues are less revered monuments and more popular selfie spots, where tourists pose alongside the hotchpotch of weathered busts and towering casts.
“We don’t see [these] statues as political totems. We treat them as historical and cultural heritage,” Taoyuan city official Huang Chao-jin said.
Like the US’ pro-slavery Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, Chiang Kai-shek’s role in Taiwan’s past continues to polarize its present. Both generals fought and lost civil wars — in Chiang Kai-shek’s case he led the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War; both are symbols of a noble past to their supporters, and of a dark history to their detractors.
However, while lawmakers and activists in the US’ south grapple over whether to destroy, cover up or honor memorials to Lee and his fellow generals, Taiwanese authorities say the relocated Chiang Kai-shek statues — shorn of their original context — have lost their partisan edge and have become a popular tourist draw.
Although there is no tally of visitor numbers to the statue park, located a stone’s throw from Chiang Kai-shek’s mausoleum in Taoyuan, about 2.2 million people come to the area.
Among them, people who have come to pay their respects to a man who waged war against China. They rub shoulders with visitors from China, who remember a leader who fought bravely against the Imperialist Japanese.
“Mr Chiang [Kai-shek] was an extraordinary man. We in China are grateful for what he did in the war against the Japanese,” said Dai Yukuan from China’s Anhui Province, visiting Taiwan for the first time. “After all, it is all in the past. What we Chinese really want is cross-strait peace.”
The serene park offers a stark contrast to events in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month, where a violent rally by right-wing groups to protest the removal of a statue of Lee descended into chaos.
One woman was killed after a white supremacist allegedly plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters.
US President Donald Trump condemned the “foolish” removal of Confederate statues, saying US culture and history were being “ripped apart.”
In Taiwan, the debate over history continues, but is more measured.
In Taipei earlier this year, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorail Hall stopped selling souvenirs depicting the former leader.
The decision was taken on the 70th anniversary of a brutal massacre of protesters by troops from Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), when Taiwan was still under martial law.
Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said at the time that Chiang Kai-shek had left a “deep scar hidden in the hearts of all Taiwanese.”
However, at the statue park, even as the number of memorials grows each year, their divisive power appears to have drained away.
“It doesn’t feel like the statues were moved here willingly to be commemorated,” said Lin Hui-chun, 33. “There’s more a feeling of abandonment.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires