‘Statues [of Chiang] are the final remnant of the [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] authoritarian regime, which has to be removed if a full-fledged democracy is to be realized.’
The News Lens
Date: 2017/04/24
By: Rosemary Chen
Amid increased acts of vandalism on statues of Chiang Kai-shek (去蔣化) lawmakers in
Photo Credit: Corbis/達志影像
Taiwan are calling for the widespread removal of statues of the former dictator.
On April 22, a statue of Chiang in a public park on the outskirts of Taipei was decapitated and red paint splashed all over the body. The base of the statue was spray-painted with words such as “killer” and “228” – referring to the February 28 Incident (also known as the 228 Massacre) in 1947, when Chiang was the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), which saw the KMT suppress a public uprising and kill thousands.
A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker has drafted a new bill that would see the removal of all symbols associated with Chiang in the large public hall in Taipei that bears his name and relocate 45,000 statues of Chiang in Taiwan to the Chiang’s mausoleum in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪) – currently home to 219 Chiang statues.
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