Taiwan's criminal law prohibiting citizens from defacing portraits of Sun Yat-sen

Article 160 of the Criminal Law of the Republic of China:

A person who with purpose to insult the Republic of China openly damages, removes, or dishonors the emblem of the Republic of China or the flag of the Republic of China shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than one year, short-term imprisonment, or a fine of not more than nine thousand dollars.
A person who with purpose to insult the founder the Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, openly damages, removes, or dishonors his portrait shall be subject to the same punishment.

What do you think of Taiwan’s criminal law prohibiting citizens from defacing portraits of Sun Yat-sen

Would this be considered a form of personality cult? Deifying Sun Yat-sen?

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Well thats not a very stiff penalty. I dont agree with that being illegal but still tame compared to say insulting the King of Thailand in Thailand or cartoons of Mohammed anywhere in the Moslim world… Taiwan is a very free country (Cannabis laws aside)

Good for Taiwan. Being a free country doesn’t mean being an irresponsible one.

Sun Yat Sen is the Father of modern Taiwan and is the only figure that both the ROC and the PROC are brought together by.

Ideally it would just be vandalism. Uneccessary hate crime and public offence laws are similar.

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Sun is not the typical target of vandalism. It’s usually the remaining statues of CKS due to the killings and other forms of state violence he authorized in Taiwan.

Guy

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CKS is one of the founding fathers of Taiwan for better or for worse.

A society that learns to respect their fathers and accept their misgivings is better for it.

as far as the deaths - you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

Just look at today’s expendable in Taiwan and the losses that aren’t talked about: the unborn children of Taiwan.

Just look at the contemporary leaders - should we allow for their memories to be vandalized as they have allowed Taiwan to have a “modern” country at the cost of such a horrible birth rate? How would history view them?

It is not irresponsible to have the freedom to criticise politicians.

There is no need to be brought together with the communists. Taiwan can be Taiwan with its own figures that have actually lived here and contributed.

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AFAIK it’s unenforced and a holdover from the KMT dictatorship.

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Sun Yat Sen never even visited Taiwan. Never ate betelnut. Never wore blue 拖鞋. Never rode his Vespa over Chungshan bridge at 4 am drunk and with no helmet on.

How is he the father of Taiwan?

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Criticize politicians - sure.

Deface founding fathers who no longer are in politics? Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm

For this there is. Both parties fended off the imperial dynasty. I think there’s a movie called 1911 that shows the history of what happened.

No taiwan cannot be its own. Taiwan will always be someone’s vassal state. And taiwan is predominantly ethnically Han Chinese. Sorry

He is the founder of the ROC but don’t take my work for it: the ROC citizens call him the father of the country. There’s a station named after him in Taipei.

Betelniut? Rode a Vespa? Are you being serious?

The KMT call him the founder. No one else does.

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The heck? Both SYS and CKS were terrible people. Saying this is like saying that a child who was beaten so badly by their abusive parents that they ended up in a coma should learn to respect their parents and accept their misgivings because they brought them into this world. No. People who do terrible things should not be resected despite their misgivings. Their terrible actions should be called out, and they should be shamed for them. People who do bad things should not be put on a pedestal and made to feel important long after they go to their grave.

Mao was hands down the biggest mass murderer in human history, by a landslide. He killed far, far more people than Hitler or Stalin, for sure. Only truly despicable people think of Hitler and Stalin as remotely decent people by any stretch of the imagination. The Chinese people are expected to revere Mao and hold him to a god-like level of importance. Taiwan has moved on and become a democracy wherein laws are intended to protect human rights. They are not required to bow down to dictators and horrible leaders who do or did terrible things. Freedom of speech and freedom to express discontent with the government without repercussions is not optional here. Taiwanese people are finally at a point in their history where they can look back and say, “those two men were terrible, and we should not allow such terrible actions to be repeated in this country” without fear of something terrible happening to them. They should be allowed to act on those realizations. That’s how human rights are maintained and countries avoid slipping back into authoritarianism.

If you think that people should respect CKS in any way at all, I beg you to please build yourself a time machine and go back and relive those days in Taiwan. You’d be alone in that desire.

Notice you didn’t say anything at all about SYS except he was a “terrible” person. The rest of the time you ranted about Mao and CKS, who nobody was defending. Specifics?
(Ooops, see ExpatDad was- to be expected.)

I’m not gonna argue with someone who can’t accept the fact that the founder and father of the ROC is Sun Yat Sen. CKC was number two and the father of the ROC in Taiwan.

Taiwan is the Republic of China. It’s written all over their government buildings and documents for Pete sake.

Having to fight in a terrible environment. You go try start a revolution in the early 20th century lol.

Please elaborate.

Doesn’t change the fact that they were terrible people who did terrible things. Plenty of notable people brought about change in the 20th century without being mass murderers. CKS isn’t Mao, Hitler, or Stalin level bad, but he is one of the top killers of the 20th century.

elaborate on how abusers should be locked away and shamed and never ever revered and that victims should not ever be forced to show gratitude toward people who did terrible things to them?

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I can see vandalism on other people’s property.

What’s I’m interested to k now is: If person A owns paper and pencil, draws him out, the burns that image (that his person [theoretically] owns), what then?

Burning someone else’s flag or picture I get. Doesn’t matter what shape and shade the ink splotches are in. But if one creates it themselves, free to burn? Or is his image some kind of patent level registration trademark type thing?

The founder of the ROC in China was SYS. It collapsed and was replaced by the PRC. Notice that the national day of China is October 1, marking Mao’s proclamation of the PRC in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1 1949. October 10 is not celebrated as a public holiday in China, nor is Sun Yat-sen recognised as the founder of modern China- that ‘honour’ belongs to Mao, and if you want to revere ‘the father of his country’ you can pay your respects to him.
The ROC’s national day was the anniversary of the Wuchang Rebellion in 1911. The KMT proclaimed it to be the national day of the Republic of China until 1949. It was never celebrated in Taiwan until the establishment of the KMT dictatorship in 1945-46. Taiwan currently celebrates it as its national day under the title “Taiwan National Day”.
Though the day is not recognised in China, the government of Taiwan uses the date as well as the obsolete name “Republic of China” because if it changes either it will get massive retaliation from China, and the government is concerned about the lives of its citizens.

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Have you ever tried betel nut ? Just curious.