Taiwan bids to write Chiang out of history
The tour guide was seething. "Chiang Kai-shek was a psychopathic dictator," she shouted, glaring at the woman in the gift shop of what used to be the main memorial to Taiwan's former leader. "Nonsense," the shopkeeper snapped back. "He was a great historical figure, a great man."
Some 32 years after his death, the man who became synonymous with the island's split with mainland China has been thrust back into the political spotlight, as Taiwan's two main political parties seek an issue to galvanise public opinion before presidential elections next year.
To the opposition nationalist Kuomintang party, whose original members Chiang led to Taiwan after they were driven from the mainland in 1949 by Mao Tse-tung's communists, he remains a symbol of eventual reunification. To the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which draws much of its support from the indigenous Taiwanese population and favours formal independence, he was a brutal dictator who spent his 25 years at the helm engaged in a reign of terror.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Some 32 years after his death, the man who became synonymous with the island's split with mainland China has been thrust back into the political spotlight, as Taiwan's two main political parties seek an issue to galvanise public opinion before presidential elections next year.
To the opposition nationalist Kuomintang party, whose original members Chiang led to Taiwan after they were driven from the mainland in 1949 by Mao Tse-tung's communists, he remains a symbol of eventual reunification. To the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which draws much of its support from the indigenous Taiwanese population and favours formal independence, he was a brutal dictator who spent his 25 years at the helm engaged in a reign of terror.