Taiwan is still full of reminders of the authoritarian era under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), with a total of 1,814 sites, monuments and office spaces named in memory of them, an average of one for every 20km2 in the nation, a Transitional Justice Commission report released on Friday said.
Taiwan has 1,235 monuments, statues, sculptures and large-frame portraits commemorating the two Chiangs, commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠) said, adding that of those, 511 fall under the central government’s jurisdiction, and only 54 have been removed or renamed.
There are also 579 memorial sites and office spaces named in remembrance of them.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Excluding the 227 statues of Chiang Kai-shek and two of Chiang Ching-kuo at the Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪), there are 848 statues of Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, of which 511 belong to local governments and 337 belong to the central government, the report said.
Taipei has the most statues of Chiang Kai-shek at 129, followed by Taoyuan at 112 and Taichung at 98, it added.
For those under the central government’s jurisdiction, most of the statues dedicated to the two Chiangs are located in agencies under the Ministry of National Defense, the Veterans Affairs Council and the Ministry of Education, the report found, adding that they have 276 in total, or 82 percent.
The three ministries also have the highest number of office spaces and sites dedicated to the two Chiangs at 143, or 89 percent.
Of the 419 statues, office spaces and sites, only five have been removed or repurposed, and that was mainly done by universities, commission Deputy Chair Yeh Hung-ling (葉虹靈) said, adding that as the military and other schools have differing views on the removal of statues or monuments of the two Chiangs, discussions with the three ministries are ongoing.
“There are many ways to handle these reminders of Taiwan’s authoritarian past, including removing them, repurposing them into open public sites or spaces for the arts ... while moving them to be stored at a warehouse is also another option, or transferring them to cultural parks,” said Yang, adding the commission would continue to keep track of how the government agencies are dealing with the matter.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS