WHY DOES THE DPP WANT TO REMOVE HIS STATUES?
The DPP does not consider Taiwan as part of China. When the party won the presidency in 2000, it launched a series of educational reforms to remove Chinese history from high school textbooks.
The DPP considers Mr Chiang a dictator and his regime a foreign one. It believes his statues should not be in public because they represent symbols of dictatorship and authoritarianism. Under his leadership, there was no freedom of speech.
In 1947, the arrest of a cigarette vendor in Taipei led to large-scale protests by the native Taiwanese against Chiang’s government.
Following the protests, thousands, including students, lawyers and doctors, were executed. It is estimated that up to 28,000 people lost their lives in the turmoil.
During the subsequent years of the “White Terror” period, Mr Chiang’s government ruled Taiwan under martial law, which ended only in the mid-1980s.
In 2018, the DPP established a transitional justice committee to investigate Mr Chiang’s rule. Among its recommendations was a recommendation to remove Chiang statues from public spaces.
However, there are some factions that think history should be preserved as it is, said Dr Lim Tai Wei, adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.
Others also believe that given Mr Chiang’s setting up of military academies, participation in a war of resistance against external enemies, and role in building modern Taiwan, he does have a place in history, Dr Lim told CNA’s East Asia Tonight.
