Taipei Times
Date: Oct 26, 2015
By: Chang Hsiao-ti and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) commemoration of the 70th anniversary of
Schoolchildren perform a song at a Retrocession Day commemoration in Taipei yesterday against a backdrop showing Chiang Kai-shek, then-US president Franklin Roosevelt, then-British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soong Mei-ling seated in front of military and civilian officials at the 1945 Cairo Conference. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Retrocession Day yesterday betrayed a hidden China-centric and pro-unification agenda, academics said at a forum in Taipei.
The forum, hosted by the Taiwan Association of University Professors, was aimed at challenging the official “liberation” narrative of Taiwan’s post-World War II history.
“‘Liberation’ is the shackling of the Taiwanese by a military junta led by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石); a shackling that is still in evidence 70 years later,” association secretary-general Hsu Wen-tang (許文堂) said. “It is a liberation that never was.”
“The political subtext of the liberation anniversary is unification,” Taiwan Thinktank deputy executive director Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) said. [FULL STORY]
