Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on Tuesday gave a preview into the personal diaries of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), which are to be open to public viewing starting in February.
The diaries show Chiang focused on Taiwan’s political and economic development in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in sharp contrast to his father, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), said Lin Hsiao-ting (林孝庭), curator of East Asia collections at Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
Based on the elder Chiang’s diaries, “his heart was always with mainland China, and he was mostly interested in retaking the mainland,” Lin said.
Photo: CNA
The Chiang Ching-kuo diaries cover May 1937 to December 1979, and offer insight into his life from the time he returned to China from Soviet Russia and his move to Taiwan.
The diaries of the year 1948 were lost, while the entries from 1937 to 1940, and from 1945 to 1949 are transcripts, and the rest are handwritten originals, Lin said.
Chiang Ching-kuo, who served as president from 1978 until his death in 1988, stopped keeping a diary in 1979 for reasons that are not known, Lin said, adding that it might be due to health problems, because he underwent prostate surgery that year.
During the preview, the institution showed a selection of the copied and original Chiang Ching-kuo diaries, focusing mostly on his participation in major decisionmaking processes in Taiwan after 1949.
Among the most notable entries was his reaction after he was told in the early hours of Dec. 16, 1978, by then-US ambassador Leonard Unger that Washington was severing ties with Taipei.
It was a hard blow for Chiang Ching-kuo, who wrote: “[I am] in agony. While shouldering heavy responsibilities, [I] should handle it rationally and calm people down first.”
He also wrote that he thought Taiwan’s “strength” and “morality and sense of justice” would serve as the core of the nation’s diplomacy thereafter.
According to entries written on Jan. 18, 1970, he said the best policy for Taiwan was developing the economy, and he wanted to work for the well-being of the people.
The diaries are to be available for public viewing in their entirety at the Hoover Archives’ Reading Room, which is to open in February. They will also complement the collection of diaries from 1915 to 1972 left by his father, who led China from 1928 to 1949 and then ruled Taiwan after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War to the communists in 1949 until his death in 1975.
The elder Chiang’s diaries were made public by the institution in 2006 and have since been the most requested collection in the institution’s possession.
The institution has held the diaries of the Chiangs since 2005, when Chiang Ching-kuo’s daughter-in-law Chiang Fang Chih-yi (蔣方智怡) signed a 50-year agreement for the documents to be curated by the institution.
Legal disputes over ownership of the diaries have been ongoing since, but all parties involved last summer agreed to make them public to facilitate research.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS