The owner of a company that sells Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) figurines yesterday called himself “a 228 victim” after the “announcement without warning” that merchandise bearing Chiang’s likeness were to be pulled off souvenir store shelves at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. However Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said such merchandise can still be bought elsewhere.
The sale of figurines, stationery and accessories bearing Chiang’s likeness constitutes a small percentage of the three souvenir stores’ revenue, the minister said, adding that the hall had spoken to the companies before the measure was carried out, so it should not have affected their rights.
The ministry on Saturday last week announced that the sale of products bearing authoritarian symbols would cease ahead of the passage of amendments to the Organization Act of the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Management Office (國立中正紀念堂管理處組織法) to reinvent the hall, including renaming it.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The KMT held a press conference in Taipei yesterday, at which Lin Sheng-chang (林盛章), chairman of a company that develops merchandise featuring Chiang, said the government had begun a “green terror” campaign.
He accused the minister of lying, saying he had not received advance notice of the measure, nor had the contractor who informed him of the decision.
“I have sold the products for eight years since 2008; they were plain souvenirs for tourists, but they have become the target of [the government’s] ideological policies,” Lin said.
“I do not know where to go with the more than 10,000 figurines still in my warehouse,” he said.
He said his design promotes “cross-strait harmony,” while the ban imposes on the right to create and economic freedom.
The Ministry of Culture said that last year’s revenue from the sale of such merchandise from the hall’s three stores was about NT$4.98 million (US$160,542) out of the stores’ overall revenue of NT$58.2 million.
Revenue from the sale of Chiang figurines was NT$820,000, it said.
The figurines were sold on consignment at the hall, which was only one of the places the company sold its products, the ministry said.
The government respects creative designs made by private firms and their sale, purchase and circulation in the free market, but in an effort to make public space politically neutral, products featuring Chiang will no longer be developed or sold by the government, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang and Yang Ming-yi
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
RSS