The majority of Taiwanese are against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s decisions to remove souvenirs bearing Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) likeness from stores at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, to close the memorial on the anniversary of the 228 Incident or to remove statues of Chiang, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-commissioned poll released yesterday showed.
A poll conducted for the party by the TrendGo Survey Research Co found that 60.4 percent of respondents said they did not approve of the government’s removing statues of Chiang around the nation or products carrying his likeness from the memorial on the grounds that “Chiang had been an authoritarian ruler,” the party said.
Only 17.7 percent of respondents supported the moves, while 21.8 percent had no opinion, the KMT said.
Photo: Chen Yi-chuan, Taipei Times
The government has been ignoring vital issues concerning the economy to focus on political feuds and ideological wars in the name of transitional justice, the KMT said.
“The KMT calls on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to desist while she is still able to do so and not to trample on the public’s trust,” the KMT said.
“Chiang was not a murderer, nor was he the mastermind of the 228 Incident, but the principal warrior that safeguarded Taiwan,” the party said.
The 228 Incident refers to a crackdown launched by the then-KMT regime following demonstrations that followed an incident in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947.
The Incident marked the beginning of the White Terror era, during which thousands of Taiwanese were arrested, imprisoned and/or executed.
Asked if the DPP government’s policies on undertaking transitional justice were “manufacturing social conflicts and opposition,” 51.6 percent of the respondents said yes, while about 31.5 percent said that they would promote social conciliation and solidarity and 17 percent had no response.
“The KMT supports the idea of ‘restoring historical truth,’ but facts must be respected and the historical context and processes should be taken into serious account rather than launching political vendettas against deceased figures,” the KMT said.
“It is a convention that achievements and misdeeds [of political figures] are determined by historians and the public. The DPP’s transitional justice aims to manufacture conflicts and violates the basic requirements and logic of true transitional justice,” the KMT said.
The poll collected 1,101 samples and has a margin of error of 2.95 percentage points.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said