Road signs can take us to places we would never have imagined.
The Ministry of the Interior is researching renaming roads — spelled variously as Zhongzheng (中正) in Taipei and Jhongjheng in other parts of the nation — named after former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). The difference in spelling itself has an ideological basis.
It is the name that adorns the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) in Taipei — the monument to the former dictator is spelled Chiang Kai-shek in English, but uses Zhongzheng in Chinese.
According to a study by the Transitional Justice Commission, 316 roads are named Zhongzheng or Jhongjheng; another 28 are named Jieshou (介壽), an abbreviation of the slogan “long live Chiang Kai-shek”; and 11 are named Jingguo (經國) after Chiang’s son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
Chiang Kai-shek chose Zhongzheng, which implies the qualities of uprightness, rectitude and orthodoxy, for himself. The name, glorifying the former dictator, is all around us.
All street names in Taiwan honoring Japanese or the state of Japan were changed in 1945 after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government assumed control of the former Japanese colony. Just as the Japanese had created names to glorify their colonial rule, so the KMT sought to erase this memory and establish a national narrative of its own.
Criticism about the plan to change the names centers on the projected cost of the endeavor. It is not about money. It is about ideology. Words and names matter. They frame collective memory and consciousness, they shape understanding. The degree to which this affects our cognitive understanding of our world depends on how wide we draw the circle, or how far we step back to observe, from the local to the international.
On this page, Yu Ming (嶼明) writes about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “discursive engineering,” the selective creation and use of names and terms to form its preferred narrative, and to change perceptions of history and truth regarding Taiwan.
On the local implications, Yu uses the example of a speech by Zhang Weiwei (張維為), a professor in China about how Taiwanese, and especially the younger generation, could be easily controlled through the targeted use of discursive engineering channeled through social media and short-video apps. Zhang said that this could “pave the way to eventual unification.”
The Taipei Times dealt with concerns over penetration of the Taiwanese consciousness through these apps in an editorial (“Use Chinese apps with care,” May 30, page 8), but the problem goes so much deeper.
The ministry has said that the reason for changing the road names is to emerge from the authoritarian past and to promote Taiwan’s local languages and culture, including those of indigenous communities. It is a way of returning the nation and, to use Yu’s phrase, “the boundaries of sovereign thought,” from the KMT regime to Taiwanese in the modern, democratic era.
Drawing the circle much wider to the international level, look at the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) delivered in Moscow on May 7 in a speech entitled “Learning from History to Build Together a Brighter Future” to mark the end of World War II. Even within that context in a short speech, Xi devoted an entire paragraph on the “restoration” of Taiwan, citing the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and UN Resolution 2758 as having “affirmed China’s sovereignty” over “the Taiwan island” and how they “legitimize” its “inevitable reunification.”
Multiple levels of vigilance against attempts to shape the narrative and collective thought are required. It starts in our own backyard, and with an awareness of the importance of names.
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
Behind the gloating, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must be letting out a big sigh of relief. Its powerful party machine saved the day, but it took that much effort just to survive a challenge mounted by a humble group of active citizens, and in areas where the KMT is historically strong. On the other hand, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) must now realize how toxic a brand it has become to many voters. The campaigners’ amateurism is what made them feel valid and authentic, but when the DPP belatedly inserted itself into the campaign, it did more harm than good. The
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) held a news conference to celebrate his party’s success in surviving Saturday’s mass recall vote, shortly after the final results were confirmed. While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would have much preferred a different result, it was not a defeat for the DPP in the same sense that it was a victory for the KMT: Only KMT legislators were facing recalls. That alone should have given Chu cause to reflect, acknowledge any fault, or perhaps even consider apologizing to his party and the nation. However, based on his speech, Chu showed
For nearly eight decades, Taiwan has provided a home for, and shielded and nurtured, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). After losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of soldiers, along with people who would go on to become public servants and educators. The party settled and prospered in Taiwan, and it developed and governed the nation. Taiwan gave the party a second chance. It was Taiwanese who rebuilt order from the ruins of war, through their own sweat and tears. It was Taiwanese who joined forces with democratic activists
RSS