I don’t think so.
Taiwanese entrepreneurs are mostly Ben di ren, with American support an independent Taiwan would have done very well. They would have developed business with Japan and US and Europe just the same. Taiwan really didn’t need the KMT for anything. As a bulwark to stop invasion or Chinese communists…It depends if the Americans would.have stepped in or not to support an independent Taiwan.
Under Japanese rule would have developed very quickly too.
Later we would still have the problem of how to deal with rising China though. That’s the same for almost all scenarios.
But without the Japanese influence, followed by industrial know-how from China, I don’t think industry would have developed the way it did. Taiwan has always had business-minded people, of course, but before the Shanghai industrialists came, they were mostly involved in trade and extractive industries. The Philippines also has a very successful Chinese business class, but the Philippines is obviously quite different from Taiwan.
Why not keep the statue but put it in perspective of who he was unbiased as possible. Let each and every man and women read about him and decide. Surely they didn’t demolish the autobahn and destroy VW and other things Hitler did. He was a part of Taiwan’s history for better and worse, we can’t hide it and pretend it didn’t happen by taking his statues down. Just put it in historical context on who this man was. What he did, good and bad. History is important.
Industrial know how from China?
Examples ?
I heard the military were stripping down factories here and shipping them back to China when they first came!
Taiwan already had tonnes of industrial know how from Japanese times, and American and Japanese investment brought more know how in 50s and 60s to Taiwan especially when it was given preferential trading status and cheap loans.
We don’t need his massive statue in the middle of Taipei. Just melt it down and give the money to the poor. The park and halls can remain just fine.
Also take his bloody portrait and statue out of the schools …That’s the most annoying part…Brainwashing and trying to stamp KMT mark in the school system .
I’m pretty sure the cost of melting it down is more costly than what we can get out of it…you’re sounding a lot like Mao telling people to melt their pots and pans for metal.
How about just educate the kids about history on who he was. It’s really that simple.
We don’t need a massive statue of him in the city to teach us about history . It’s the message it sends. He’s not the father of Taiwan.
After the communists were removed from power they got rid of most of the statues in the former USSR, same in Ireland we fucked out all the Queen Victoria statues , Australia was glad to take them off our hands I think…
I think CKS statue can be donated to somebody if they want to house it somewhere else.
I’m not sure. It was up when I was kid. No idea who the fuck he was. I would just climb on top of him and eat my snacks. Never gave much thought about who he was and never was taught because they don’t teach history in Taiwan until I think middle school and even then it’s not well taught.
We don’t. But obviously it’s there. I honestly don’t like him either and want him down, but personal feelings aside. It seems just simpler to make it a history monument and add historical context since it is a tourist attraction and all.
And it’s not brainwashing the kids. I went to school here as a kid and they never once taught who it was. I walked by it every day and never knew and cared. No one did. It was like a thing to climb on lol
Anyway, best solution would be to have a vote on what to put in there. I vote for a gigantic statue of this to replace CKS. 100% sure it would bring publicity and a draw with the tourists.
Mostly centered on commodity extraction, not heavy industry.
Again, external factors that aided in industrial development. My argument was that Taiwan, left to its own devices, would probably return to being a sleepy tropical backwater. Of course, history could have gone in many different directions. If Taiwan had become American territory, who knows what it would be like today?
wow and my first trip here was in 1987! This guy Tommy should have some sort of protected status on this site. Put up a statue of Tommy.
By the way he’s right that in general people looked very positive and happy back then, I think Taiwan’s economy was ranked about nine in the world in 88.
Things worked under KMT controlled state run enterprises? Hilarious.
Again, you didn’t feel the deeply corrupted, ineffective bureaucracies because you were living in Taipei. Outside of Taipei KMT could careless if things weren’t working and local mafia were running the show and calling shots.
As long as Taipei was presentable, and foreign guests couldn’t see things falling apart behind the show, KMT wouldn’t loose face, and the Chiangs were happy. Power outages were common even well into the 80s when I was growing up, outside of Taipei of course. I was privilege in the economic sense, but even living in Hsinchu, the high tech industrial base of Taiwan at the time, didn’t make the electricity anymore stable.
It was going public that made many of the services reliable for most Taiwanese, even for those unprivileged living in more remote areas.
I seriously understand how people tend to look back with rose tinted glasses, but with all that money and wealth under their disposal, the Chiangs sure did very little in terms of investing in Taiwan’s future infrastructure.
Its brainwashing cos they have the portrait behind the principals when they are giving their speeches on the stage. Why is it there otherwise ? Why don’t they take it down ?
Who would dare? I doubt many are willing to risk the social stigma associated with that! I remember when not standing for the National Anthem before a movie might get you beaten so things do change here.
They don’t anymore, it’s actually a picture of Tsai. As is with all military bases now, they replaced all the CKS portraits with the commander in chief, President Tsai.
