Chiang Kai-shek (
So what possible justification could there be for a democratic state to "honor" his memory by keeping statues of him on military bases?
Since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost power in 2000, there have been many instances in which pan-blue diehards have demonstrated their desire to brush aside the legal requirements of a democratic state in an effort to re-establish totalitarian control of Taiwan.
This attitude was especially evident after the 2004 presidential election. At the time, rumors abounded that a coup d'etat had been attempted by pan-blue fanatics, but had quickly fizzled out because of the good sense of most military and political leaders.
Later came such travesties as the attacks on government buildings by mobs led by pan-blue legislators, demands for unconstitutional "compromises," and the establishment of the extra-legal "March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee" designed to prove whatever former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
However, in a democracy trust is something that political leaders must work to establish. They are not entitled to it. So when members of the KMT respond to criticism of their party's inglorious, authoritarian past with the kind of visceral rhetoric they employed this week, many Taiwanese become deeply afraid of what will happen should the KMT return to power.
We've had to suffer through Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
Perhaps Ma would be better off investing some time in establishing his national leadership credentials by demonstrating that he is unafraid to stare down the revisionist reactionaries in his own party, before he gallivants about the globe giving civics lessons to the Chinese Communist Party.
He could start by endorsing the de-politicization of the one institution that can make or break Taiwan's democratization: the military. It is absurd to maintain that "for historical reasons" it is desirable for the military to retain the trappings and symbolism of a one-party state. It is vital to show that the institutions of the state belong to the state's ultimate sovereigns -- not any political party, but the people of Taiwan.
Removing the statues of the "Generalissimo" from all public localities is desirable and necessary to dismantle the totalitarian cult of personality that befits only crackpot regimes like North Korea.
Jonathan Fenby wrote in his biography of Chiang, Chiang Kai-shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost, "The Cold War made an objective assessment of Chiang almost impossible as the past was viewed through the lens of what followed."
"Either he was a faithful friend of the West who had been undone by Communist cunning, Western irresolution and treachery in the State Department; or he was a reactionary, cruel, incompetent dictator who was no better than the warlords, who betrayed the true interests of his nation by failing to stand up to the Japanese in time, and who perverted the sacred teachings of Sun Yat-sen (
Taiwan is no longer bound by the intolerant fetterings of the fight against the "Communist bandits," which was used to justify much evil during Chiang's day. It is time to look with clear eyes at Taiwan's past, as well as that of the KMT.
Chiang is no democratic icon. Take the statues down.
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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