The diaries of former Republic of China (ROC) presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) arrived in Taiwan on Thursday, and are to be published by Academia Historica from October, the state archives said.
The documents, previously housed at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Library & Archives, were sent by the California research institute on a flight that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport early on Thursday morning, the state archives said in a press statement later that day.
The 59 boxes of documents delivered to the state archives include the two former presidents’ diaries dated from 1917 to 1979, as well as private letters, manuscripts, telegrams, microforms, official documents and other historic materials, the archives said.
Photo courtesy of Academia Historica
These historic materials first arrived at the Hoover Institution after it signed an agreement in 2005 with Chiang Ching-kuo’s daughter-in-law Chiang Fang Chih-yi (蔣方智怡), which stipulated that the institute could curate the diaries for 50 years.
This led to years of legal wrangling over rightful ownership of the documents.
Chiang Fang and other family members began transferring ownership of the diaries to Academia Historica in 2013, making the state archives the official custodian, the archives said.
Last year, the High Court ruled that documents produced by the two former presidents while they were in office were the property of the country, while personal materials kept when they were not president belonged to the Chiang family, the archives said.
The Taiwanese court ruling was accepted in July by a court in California — which also first began hearing an ownership case brought by Stanford in 2013 — and ordered the university to return the documents to Academia Historica within 60 days, the archives said.
Academia Historica said that it plans to publish the first volume of Chiang Kai-shek’s diary — kept from 1948 to 1954 — in late October, and Chiang Ching-kuo’s diary — kept from 1970 to 1979 — toward the end of this year.
The historic documents would also be digitized for researchers.
The state archives already runs an online presidential database that covers every ROC president from Chiang Kai-shek, who took office in 1948, to Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is to leave office after she completes her two four-year terms in May next year.
In a press release issued on Friday, the Hoover Institution announced that the handwritten diaries, including portions of the collection that were previously unavailable to the public, would remain accessible for academic purposes.
The Chiang diaries are one of the most requested items by researchers and contain decades of valuable political and foreign policy insights of Taiwan’s past leaders, the institute said.
Academics using the diaries have revised and expanded the understanding of modern China, the Cold War and global history, it said.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’