UN Taiwan pledges to remove 760 statues of Chinese dictator Chiang Kai-shek - In move seen by the opposition as an attempt to de-sinocise Taiwan, the ruling party is pushing ahead with plans to rid the island of monuments to the dictator

The rule of General Chiang Kai-shek is under investigation in Taiwan Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

Taiwan’s government has pledged to remove almost 800 statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese military dictator who ruled the island for decades under martial law, but whose legacy remains a point of contentious debate.

In 2018 the government established a transitional justice committee to investigate the rule of the former generalissimo, who was president of the Republic of China (ROC) – in China and then in Taiwan – until his death in 1975. Among its recommendations was to remove the thousands of statues from public spaces.

Speaking to Taiwan’s legislature on Monday, cabinet official Shih Pu said the ministry of interior would quickly remove the 760 still remaining. The pledge was in response to criticism that the government was not moving fast enough.

Taiwan is dotted with statues of Chiang, and for years government and society has been embroiled in debate over what to do with them, in particular the largest inside Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall. Many have already gone – often moved to a park in northern Taipei, which is now famous for the thousands of Chiang likenesses arranged around the grounds.

On Monday Shih said the military in particular had been slow to take-up subsidies provided as an incentive to remove the statues.

“The defence ministry has said it needs to take into account the military tradition,” Shih told the legislature.

The defence minister last week said it was ROC military tradition to honour Chiang, who had founded its training academies in China and then Taiwan, and that he considered military sites to be private property, the South China Morning Post reported.

The pledge to remove the remaining statues comes after calls for progress on the stalled decision about a statue of Chiang in Taipei that is more than six metres high and protected by a military police honour guard.

The debate over Chiang’s legacy is largely split along party lines, with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party advocating a move away from ongoing tributes, while Chiang’s KMT Party – now in opposition – accuses them of wanting to erase history.

Chiang’s legacy has long been a point of political contention in Taiwan. At the end of China’s civil war in 1949, Chiang, the KMT and millions of supporters fled to Taiwan in defeat. He established the Republic of China government in exile, and ruled Taiwan’s population under a brutal martial law for decades until his death in 1975, when power was transferred to his son. By the end of martial law in 1987 as many as 140,000 people were estimated to have been imprisoned and another 3,000 to 4,000 executed for actual or perceived opposition to the KMT.

But some in Taiwan say that legacy must be weighed against Chiang’s successes, noting that he also oversaw Taiwan’s path to economic prosperity, fought against the Communists and the Japanese, and founded Taiwan’s military academies. The KMT also still exists as a major political party.

The DPP has faced accusations of seeking to “de-sinicise” Taiwan in pushing to end memorialisation of Chiang. The party holds a pro-Taiwan sovereignty position, in contrast to the KMT’s continuing embrace of Taiwan’s historical and cultural ties with China. The KMT has also expressed opposition to the transitional justice commission, and its adverse findings against the party.

Hsu Yu-chien, the KMT’s assistant director of international affairs, said Taiwan was a diverse society and the DPP should not be “imposing [its] ideology”.

“We believe it’s very important for the current government to contemplate more on the various groups of people’s historic memory.”

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[Hoplixe]

Didn't Chiang flood an entire village that killed most of his people to stop Japan's advances?

Yeah, the KMT destroyed a lot of levees in 1938(?) in a kind of scorched earth policy that was meant to help stunt the momentum and slow the advance of the Imperial Japanese Army.
It did achieve the initial goal the KMT had, which was stopping the Japanese from capturing Shaanxi and some key railway lines that were one of the very few means the Chinese could move troops, supplies and foreign aid across the vast distances of China.

It also killed more than half a million people (and a lot more from starvation), but it was a last act of desperation, Chiang didn't have many cards to play, a lot of his soldiers were actually the personal forces of Warlords that were ostensibly affiliated (or allied) with him against the Japanese, and the formations he could rely on to actually do what the government wanted them to do were poorly equipped, trained and organised.

The KMT did have some elite formations, such as the 88th division (Trained by the Germans, western equipped, highly disciplined and motivated), but such groups had suffered catastraphic losses holding the line against the Japanese in the earlier stages of the war (For the 88th, they suffered massive casualties during the battle of Shanghai a year before, and would never recover to their pre-conflict size and capabilities). Chiang did what he had to do for China's survival.

 

[Coptakhenaten]

Didn't Chiang flood an entire village that killed most of his people to stop Japan's advances?

As I said above, most of his worst atrocities were in the middle of first a brutal civil war with communists and then a near genocidal defensive war against the Japanese. His atrocities were horrific but he had to do anything to win against these two because the alternative is well, Nanking and the Great Leap Forward. Chiang killed less in wartime than Mao in peacetime.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

As I said above, most of his worst atrocities were in the middle of first a brutal civil war with communists and then a near genocidal defensive war against the Japanese. His atrocities were horrific but he had to do anything to win against these two because the alternative is well, Nanking and the Great Leap Forward. Chiang killed less in wartime than Mao in peacetime.

He dindu nuffin, circumstances forced to commit mass murder, and in any case he didn't have the highest body count in Chinese history so he was actually kind of a good guy.

 

[Duke Nukem]

They're removing the statues so that Xi Jinping doesn't have to. Congratulations numbnuts you just saved your future overlords millions in yuan by removing them yourself.

 

[Coptakhenaten]

He dindu nuffin, circumstances forced to commit mass murder, and in any case he didn't have the highest body count in Chinese history so he was actually kind of a good guy.

Where have I said he did nothing? During his time on the mainland he was one of the most brutal dictators in history. The thing is he was still extremely tame compared to any leader in a similar position. China and the rest of East Asia was dominated by the Confucian mindset which is completely collectivistic and totalitarian and the loss of a million was tuesday. That's why so many people die in wars involving China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnam. One, one hundred, a thousand, or even a million lives meant little to them, that's the world Chiang grew up in. It's an evil mindset, but I don't blame him for holding it because that's what his whole people have been conditioned to follow for almost 3000 years.

What he did during the civil war was atrocious, the thing is unlike Mao who only got more deranged and destructive to the very end, the second the civil war was over and he was forced in Taiwan, he wasn't buckling his country to its knees. Unlike Mao who left his country in cultural and economic ruin, Chiang left his country actually competently managed and with a surviving and flourishing culture.

Much like Franco, he was a general put in a terrible position and did what he had to do to fight people who would literally erase the name of their nation if need be. However at the end of his administration he was responsible for much prosperity for his nation. The Taiwan he left when he died in 1975 was better off than the Taiwan he entered in 1949.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

Where have I said he did nothing? During his time on the mainland he was one of the most brutal dictators in history. The thing is he was still extremely tame compared to any leader in a similar position. China and the rest of East Asia was dominated by the Confucian mindset which is completely collectivistic and totalitarian and the loss of a million was tuesday. That's why so many people die in wars involving China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnam. One, one hundred, a thousand, or even a million lives meant little to them, that's the world Chiang grew up in. It's an evil mindset, but I don't blame him for holding it because that's what his whole people have been conditioned to follow for almost 3000 years.

What he did during the civil war was atrocious, the thing is unlike Mao who only got more deranged and destructive to the very end, the second the civil war was over and he was forced in Taiwan, he wasn't buckling his country to its knees. Unlike Mao who left his country in cultural and economic ruin, Chiang left his country actually competently managed and with a surviving and flourishing culture.

Much like Franco, he was a general put in a terrible position and did what he had to do to fight people who would literally erase the name of their nation if need be. However at the end of his administration he was responsible for much prosperity for his nation. The Taiwan he left when he died in 1975 was better off than the Taiwan he entered in 1949.

Just like George Floyd, Mike Brown, and so on, his crimes weren't really crimes at all, it was just part of his struggle to survive. He was a good man trying to make his way in a hard world. He was forced him to loot museums and China's national treasury like some Iraqi from 2003, and he had no choice but to spend the last few decades of his life wasting resources on harebrained schemes to reconquer the mainland instead of divesting himself of it and shoring up support while the ROC was still universally recognized.

 

[Corpun]

"It's only statues you chud! They will go in a museum."

The ROC has fallen, billions must die.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Are they gonna erect statues of Hideki Tojo?