One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.”
Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge.
The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize authoritarianism, such as Jhongjheng Road (中正), named after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). KMT Legislator Hsu Yu-chen (許宇甄) said that the Presidential Office, a Japanese colonial building, was the greatest remaining symbol of the former authoritarian regime and suggested that President William Lai (賴清德) find new offices.
Photo: TAIPEI TIMES
In calling for the renaming, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) cited the 2017 Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), which states that symbols appearing in public buildings or places that commemorate or express nostalgia for authoritarian rulers shall be removed or renamed. That includes road names, but also statues of authoritarian rulers. Liu said that 311 streets are named “Jhongjheng,” while 29 are named Jieshou (介壽), a term wishing longevity for Chiang, and nine are named Jingguo, to honor former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). She added that the MOI had identified 349 road names in need of change.
INCONVENIENT
The KMT’s Hsu observed, correctly, that the proposal would require massive changes to documents and registrations. At issue are thousands upon thousands of street signs, address placards, business licenses, land deeds and household registrations, along with employer IDs, government IDs, National Health Insurance cards and driver’s licenses, to name only a few.
Photo: Chang Hsuan-che, Taipei Times
Cultures tend to package their values in opposing pairs: “good-bad,” “generous-stingy” or “hardworking-lazy.” Anyone who has spent a few minutes in a local 7-Eleven will quickly realize one of Taiwan’s most important values is “convenience.” Its paired opposite is the commonly heard term mafan (麻煩, “hassle”), which Taiwanese passionately detest.
Typically, dealing with public and private bureaucracies requires multiple trips. When the government finally changed ID numbers for foreigners a few years ago, I had to visit the telecom office four times and the bank three times. My employers all needed copies as well. I had to dance that same dance when my permanent address changed, all for just one ID. Multiply that by a dozen documents for every adult in Taiwan, including especially sensitive and even contested land titles. Moreover, all these voters will be crowding government offices to process these changes at roughly the same time.
Address changes are so troublesome, they are a key reason so many renters are willing to accept their landlords evading taxes. Otherwise renters would be changing their addresses every time they moved.
This DPP government proposal to rename roads is going to call down a hurricane of mafan on the locals. They will hate it.
GOODWILL SQUANDERED
Consider how well positioned the DPP is at present. The KMT has peeved an enormous swathe of voters with its budget cuts and attacks on governance. Friends of mine previously indifferent to politics have promised me to vent their wrath on the KMT. The recall campaign has been handled by civil society organizations, with little need for DPP intervention, enabling the party to distance itself. Even better, during the run up to a mass recall election triggered in part by the KMT’s slashing of proposed defense budgets, a Taiwanese production company is going to broadcast a series about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The stars have aligned for the DPP.
And what does the party do? It confirms every complaint of middle-of-the-road voters with this proposal to change the road names. Why should the people hand the legislature back to the DPP if all they get for it is a tsumani of paperwork?
Voters will perceive themselves to be between the indifferent, China-focused anti-governance of the KMT and a perceived DPP focus on surfaces, with no change in sight to the fundamentals of Taiwan’s burdensome, increasingly unaffordable economy. The move will also hand the KMT a supply of anti-DPP propaganda every voter will be able to relate to, likely during the next election cycle. In most towns streets named after the KMT dictator run through the center of the town, through crowded, high-value commercial and residential areas. Terrible optics.
The MOI proposal will also result in extensive, expensive litigation. The laws are specifically constructed to make changing road names difficult. This will be in the news for ages.
Eliminating markers of KMT colonialism is important. It is, however, more important to present voters with a to-do list that includes things like minimum wage hikes and meaningful leave for mothers and fathers after birth. Some policy imagination aimed at mandating walkable streets in designated older parts of cities and pedestrian-centered infrastructure would be a nifty sign for the future, as would legislation to speed up the transition to renewables. Even a few sops to business, such as increasing migrant worker quotas, would be preferable.
Set road renaming aside, for now. After all, markers of KMT colonialism won’t be removed if the DPP isn’t elected.
HOLLOW WORDS
KMT legislator Hsu’s description of the Presidential Office in Taipei as a marker of colonialism and authoritarianism is a reminder that it was the KMT that first relocated the president’s offices to that building. They had decades to knock it down and put in whatever they wanted. Instead, they spent piles of taxpayer dollars constructing a colonialist triumph to the dead dictator just down the road from it.
That monstrous memorial thus highlights another issue with road renaming: it reminds us that transitional justice has thus far been restricted to the surfaces of things. No one has done a minute of jail time for 50 years of killing, jailing, torturing and exiling Taiwanese during the White Terror. Likely no one ever will.
Moreover, the Presidential Office, staring across Taipei at the Dead Dictator Memorial, reminds us that this discussion of “transitional justice” is a conversation between different diasporas of Han colonialists. Though things are slowly changing, Taiwan’s Indigenous areas remain labeled with abusive names reflecting Republic of China (ROC) ideology or calls for “peace,” names that reflect Han fear of and contempt for Indigenous people.
The idea of renaming as a form of transitional justice will remain hollow without the removal of terms like fan (番, “savage”), from place names across Taiwan. Legislator Hsu’s warnings about land titles in downtown areas are just as hollow, given the land issues Indigenous people face.
Against that, renaming roads truly is just re-arranging the surfaces of things.
Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.
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