TAOYUAN (TAIWAN) – Close to 200 statues of the late autocratic leader Chiang Kai-shek stand in a park surrounding his mausoleum in the north of the country.
Chiang Kai-shek was hailed in life as an anti-communist hero, especially in the US, and there are still more than 1,000 Chiang statues in the island. But attitudes towards him have become more conflicted in Taiwan.
After losing the Chinese civil war in 1949, Chiang’s Nationalist government fled to Taiwan.
He was strongly supported by the United States during the Cold War, and some Taiwanese still view him positively for standing up to Mao Zedong’s communism.
However, many people revile him as a despot who imprisoned and killed opponents. When he died in 1975, his son Chiang Ching-kuo assumed charge and began tentative steps towards increased political openness.
Yvon Lin, 36, a Taipei city councillor for the small New Power Party, which supports the nation’s formal independence, said the question of the statues was problematical as they were such polarising figures.
“Taiwan is quite special in that around half of people really support what the two Chiangs did in the past, so if we want to get rid of the symbols of authoritarianism these people could come out and protest,” Lin said.
Over the past few years some statues of the leader have been smeared with paint, often around the anniversary of a 1947 anti-government uprising. This is generally seen as the start of Chiang’s “white terror” campaign against dissent.
Chiang’s Nationalists took control of the island from Japan in 1945 at the end of World War Two.
Visitors at the mausoleum in Taoyuan, outside the capital, pose for pictures as they gather around the statues showing Chiang in various roles – kindly father figure, wise scholar and military commander.
Just as the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired a debate in Western countries over what to do with statues of people connected with the slave trade, Taiwan has also been coming to terms with a checkered history.
Under 2017’s Act on Promoting Transitional Justice, symbols of Taiwan’s authoritarian era are supposed to be removed, renamed or “handled in other ways”.
Yet enforcement is not specified, leaving local governments to make their own decisions.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field