Today my sister-in-law called us to say hi as usual. She spoke to her sister for a while, then my wife turned to me and informed me that Chaing Kai Shek’s summer home on Yang Ming Mountain was burned to the ground last night.
Taiwan’s president Chen Shui Bian has been engaged in a campaign to erase an important piece of Taiwan’s history from modern day life. I do not dare to try to educate anyone on any of this, except to say that Chaing Kai Shek is pretty much the founder of the Taiwan we have today. I find it odd that the president chooses to ignore his importance by erasing his name from monuments, buildings and anything else that carries his name. They have talked about removing the wall from CKS Memorial Hall as well.
The next move… CKS’ Summer House on Yang Ming Mountain burns down in what is a suspected arson.
It makes you wonder. At one time, I thought Chen Shui Bian was doing well for Taiwan - now I think just the opposite. It’s not just this incident that makes me wonder - it was also the attempted assassination during his re-election campaign (the bullet just grazed him at practically point blank range) when he was losing in the polls and other things that make one wonder.
In memoriam, I have reposted some of the pictures of the CKS Summer House when we visited last October. The pictures are reposted here, in my Asian Albums site.
This a terrible loss for my favorite tropical island.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Though I hold little respect for its former occupant I mourn with you the loss of a historical site that I have not yet visited and, if it was arson, distance myself and my in-laws from those who would carry out such an act in a free society.
So, Chaing Kai Shek is “pretty much the founder of the Taiwan we have today” is he?
As I recall from reading history, Taiwan/Formosa existed before Chaing came there in 1945 and to which he escape in 1949, being chased off the mainland by the Communist (whom, in spite of Chaing sitting on hordes of weapons that the US gave him to fight the Japanese, he could not defeat).
Chiang had no concern about Taiwan except for how he could use it to take back China. He and the KMT exploited Taiwan and its native people in all ways possible. He and his Nationalists practically destroyed the islands economy over the 18 month period following the end of WWII. He punished the native Formosans for being too Japanese (calling them a degraded people). He led his soldiers in the ethnic cleanings of 27,000 of the best and brightest of the Formosans/Taiwanese in Feb-Mar 1947. He and his son presided over the military dictatorship that was Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, imprisoning or killing those who dared challenge the KMT’s one party iron grip on power and infatuation with taking back China (claiming with little or no grounds that the dissidents were communists). Green Island is apply named so because it housed thousands of dissidents who were there precisely because they had the same philosophy of government that the “pan-Green” DPP has today, an independent and democratic Taiwan.
So yes, Chaing Kai Shek is “pretty much the founder of the Taiwan we have today” in the same way that Mao is pretty much the founder of the China we have today—except that fortunately Taiwan has seen much democratic and societal reform (including the recent name rectification and de-Chaingization) since the ending of Marshall Law (and White Terror) period in 1987, while China is still waiting for its 1987 type event and resulting reforms.
So I missed seeing Chaing’s summer cottage before it burned. That is a pity. But more pitiful is the thought that it took so very long for Taiwan to recognize that repudiation of its authoritarian past was necessary for the country to move further toward the goal of a free, democracy, and independent nation.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I just don’t agree that repudiation of its authoritarian past should include the destruction of historical sites, nor the attempt to ignore that it happened. If you ignore the past, you’re certainly doomed to repeat it.