Taiwan should not remove Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) statues from veterans’ homes, as Chiang was a father figure to many retired service members who live in the assisted living facilities, Veterans Affairs Council Deputy Minister Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) told lawmakers on Thursday.
Lee made the remark during a session of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee after independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) asked for an update on the council’s progress in removing the statues.
Chiang statues are authoritarian symbols and should be removed, Lee said, but added that it is his “personal belief” that they should stay in veterans’ homes.
Photo: Taipei Times file photograph
“Chiang was like a father to the majority of veterans,” he said.
While the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major authoritarian symbol and should no longer exist in a democratic society, the government is concerned that demolishing it would anger deep-blue voters and 50,000 retired soldiers, Lee said.
The government’s priority should be to “disenchant authoritarianism,” for example through removing the walls around the structure or lowering the height of the Chiang statue, he said.
Taiwan’s prime enemy is communist China and it was not a sin that Chiang opposed communism, Lee said, adding that the government should try to bolster solidarity among Taiwanese rather than risk jeopardizing it.
Separately, Lo Cheng-chung (羅承宗), a law professor at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said that Lee’s comments were at odds with previous statements.
When serving as a lawmaker in 2006, Lee said that Chiang is not a good model for service members and that a reference to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the national anthem should be removed, Lo said.
“I wonder how today’s deputy minister Lee would explain his stance to legislator Lee in 2006,” he said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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