Many in Taiwan were appalled by the news that a statue honoring Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta in Tainan was found decapitated early on Sunday morning.
China Unification Promotion Party member and former Taipei city councilor Lee Cheng-lung (李承龍) yesterday turned himself in and confessed that he and a female accomplice were responsible for the vandalism.
Some commentators, pointing to previous cases of vandalism to statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), asked whether the Hatta statue was targeted by anti-Japan or pro-unification supporters in a bid to take “a head for a head.”
Any form of vandalism or hateful act ought to be condemned, irrespective of the national or political identity that inspires it.
However, to equate the philosophy behind the erection of the Hatta statue with what led to the proliferation of Chiang statues around the nation is a serious error.
In addition, anyone trying to criticize Taiwan’s honoring of a Japanese as an act of “Japanization” that fawns on the nation’s past colonial rulers has failed to understand history and is interested only in inciting ethnic conflict.
To examine Hatta and Chiang from a purely historical standpoint, the two are worlds apart: Hatta never killed anybody. Chiang, on the other hand, was perceived by many Taiwanese as a murderer responsible for the bloody 228 Incident during which thousands of Taiwanese and Mainlanders perished; Hatta contributed to Taiwan with his planning and overseeing of the construction of Tainan’s Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫), whose irrigation network benefited the farmers of the Chianan Plain (嘉南平原); Chiang’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took over properties belonging to the former colonial government and private properties as party assets when the Japanese colonial government and settlers left Taiwan in 1945.
It is also worth noting that Hatta’s statue came about as a result of a public initiative; it was built and financed by his subordinates, whereas the countless Chiang statues around Taiwan were erected using taxpayers’ money and without the public’s consent.
A critic might say that Hatta’s construction of the Wushantou Reservoir was motivated by the then-colonial government’s concern over a stable rice supply. However, that Hatta’s engineering achievements helped lay the keystone of Taiwan’s modernization is indisputable.
Hatta, dubbed by Taiwanese as the “Father of the Chianan Irrigation System,” is remembered not only because of the reservoir — which dramatically increased the annual production of crops in the 150,000 hectare Chianan Plain which spans from Tainan through Yunlin and Chiayi counties and greatly improved the lives of tens of thousands of households in the region — but also because despite being an official of the colonial government, he showed humility toward the welfare of Taiwanese and did not oppress or exploit them as other colonial officials did.
The values behind the statues of the two are strikingly different: Hatta was apolitical and he earned the respect of Taiwanese via his selfless deeds; Chiang’s statues were erected to idolize the leader of a totalitarian regime.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises