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China-Japan-Koreas
Taiwan to remove Chiang Kai-shek statues
2006-03-22
Taiwan has started to dismantle statues of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to shed vestiges of an authoriatarian past. The decision to remove statues of the leader from military bases on the independent island, which is still claimed by China, has sparked an outcry of public anger, the Financial Times reports.

Members of the opposition Kuomintang, the political party that left the Chinese mainland in 1949 after losing a civil war, called the move "evil" on Monday. Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive party said it was time move beyond Chiang's cult of personality. An aid of President Chen Shui-bian said "the more mature our democracy gets the less we will see of this."

Chiang's rule on both mainland China prior to the revolution and on Taiwan were marred by political oppression and corruption. Taiwanese have been peacefully divided in their views of Chiang. Debate on his legacy has been minimal since the Taiwan's democratization more than ten years ago, but a recent government report implicated the leader in the deaths some Taiwanese who were killed in an uprising against his regime.
Posted by:Anonymoose

#14  Both Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek have huge memorial buildings in Taipei, although Chiang Kai-Shek's is much larger. I am not sure if this announcement affects the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial.
Posted by: Rambler   2006-03-22 18:58  

#13  same as removing Jefferson from school's names cuz' he once owned slaves - PC bullies trying to rewrite history. He was a man - you can bitch and moan, but he helped make Taiwan what it is today. Free, prosperous. Perhaps some prefer the PRC?
Posted by: Frank G   2006-03-22 16:36  

#12  What about Dr. Sun Yat-Sen?
Posted by: mojo   2006-03-22 15:42  

#11  Politics in Free China. The KMT is now the party advocating closer ties with the Communists. KMT leaders have visited Peking and were welcomed with open arms. Removing the statues, more than anything else, is a loss of face by the KMT, who still act as if they were the ruling party.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins   2006-03-22 15:29  

#10  What young R Crawford said.
Posted by: Joe Stillwell   2006-03-22 14:29  

#9  Something else most people seem to forget is that Japan took control of Taiwan in 1895 and held the island until the end of World War II. That wasn't the first occupation by an outside power, either. The mainland Chinese look down on the people of Taiwan, but Taiwan has a significant GDP - higher than the mainland until recently.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-03-22 13:47  

#8  Thank you Fred for the Historical background on Taiwan.

I was checking Worldnet Daily and came across this article from Richard W. Hartzel and Roger C. S. Lin. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49379

I don't know if this applies in this situation regarding Taiwan/US/China affairs today; I am not fully familiar with all the relations between the 3 countries. But the authors makes the compelling argument that Taiwan is really a U.S. territory based on the rules of war and discredits China's claim to territorial ownership. And explains why the U.S. is still involved in the political/military affairs of this country and the basis for military intervening if the political leadership of Taiwan were to formally announce it's independent status and China launches military action against the island.
Posted by: delphi2005   2006-03-22 12:36  

#7  
#4
Taiwan under Chiang maintained that it was the legitimate government of China. The mainland Chinese maintained the mirror of that stance, that they were the legitimate government and Taiwan the breakaway province. Up until the Nixon years, China's UN seat was filled by Taiwan; the Nationalist government was the one that signed the original UN charter.

Up until Deng Xiao Ping, Taiwan and China were in about the same relation that South and North Korea are today. Despite Chiang's authoritarianism -- he was basically a warlord -- Taiwan has alway had much more economic freedom than the mainland. After the wreckage of the 2nd World War was cleared away, they built what had been a rustic backwater into an economic powerhouse, while the mainland played with oppression and purges and cultural revolution. Taiwan is what a Nationalist China would have grown into, had Mao lost.
Posted by: Fred   2006-03-22 09:44  

#6  A Stalinesque rewriting of history: see the disappearing commissar and etc...he's STILL waiting to be "unleashed" by the way...
Posted by: borgboy   2006-03-22 09:34  

#5  I find it hard to generate sympathy for that worthless gangster (he was a member of the Green Gang). China is better off without his ilk. Now to get rid of the commies too.
Posted by: Spot   2006-03-22 09:08  

#4  It's a bit lengthy, but there is a great description
on who the native Taiwanese where on WikiPedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigine

Politically, the concept get's even more muddier.
See article from last year Asian Times when this issue was addressed from a political perspective.

Taiwan Poll: Who's the 'real' Taiwanese?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FC20Ad04.html

This section I found interesting:

"Three main groups on Taiwan
Taiwan people, most of whom came from the mainland or descended from those immigrants, can be classified in three groups:

1. Aborigines who have inhabited the island for thousands of years and are descended from small tribes related to groups in Indonesia and the Philippines;

2. Immigrants from China who arrived between 400 and 500 years ago, especially from what is now China's Fujian Province opposite Taiwan;

3. "Mainlanders" - those who fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek and the defeated KMT in or after 1949, when the communists won the civil war and took over the mainland. This influx of mainlanders added to tensions resulting from an island uprising in 1947 that highlighted the gap between the Taiwanese who had lived on the island for generations and those who had just arrived."

I have been always been puzzled by the Chinese Governments belief that they feel that Taiwan is a
Renegade Province that needs to be annexed into greater China.

Perhaps, other Rantburger's could shed some historical light on this.
Posted by: Delphi2005   2006-03-22 09:04  

#3  Poor Peanut.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-22 08:56  

#2  Someone's never heard of indigenous Taiwanese...

(Don't ask me why ethnicity still plays a role in Asia, but it does. Not all Taiwanese are descended from post-civil-war Chinese immigrants, and not all identify as readily.)
Posted by: Edward Yee   2006-03-22 02:08  

#1  Chiang did more to fight the Japanese occupiers than did Mao. The Taiwanese would do better to think of an authoritarian future rather than revise the true nature of Chiang's national security regime.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs   2006-03-22 01:35  

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