The changing of the guard ceremonies at the memorial hall for the island's first president will be moved outside starting next week.
Taiwanese honor guards will no longer hold changing of the guard ceremonies around a giant statue of the island's first president, Chiang Kai-shek, as part of a nationwide effort to stop “worshipping authoritarianism.”
Starting Monday, the elaborate military pageant will move outdoors to Taipei's Democracy Boulevard, near the capital's iconic blue-and-white memorial hall dedicated to Chiang, which houses his 21-foot (6.3-meter) bronze statue.
“Eliminating the cult of personality and eliminating the cult of authoritarianism is the current goal to promote transitional justice,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture said in a statement on Friday.
Chiang and his Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) troops fled mainland China to Taiwan in 1949 to set up a rival government after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists.
Generally praised in life as an anti-communist hero, many in modern Taiwan vilify him as a despot who imprisoned and killed thousands of opponents during his rule.
When he died in 1975, his son Chiang Ching-kuo assumed power and began taking tentative steps toward greater political openness, paving the way for the country's first direct presidential election in 1996.
The country's Transitional Justice Commission is currently investigating cases of political persecution that took place during the “white terror” campaign against dissidents of Chiang's government.
Many young Taiwanese believe Chiang's legacy is reminiscent of what they perceive as authoritarianism in mainland China, which regards Taiwan as its territory and wants to bring the self-ruled island under its control.
In recent years, Taiwan has reduced Chiang's posthumous profile, removing hundreds of other statues of the former leader and placing them in a lakeside park near his mausoleum in the northern city of Taoyuan.
In 2006, the name of the island's main international airport was changed from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport to Taoyuan International Airport.
Families of victims of the 1947 massacre by Chiang's Nationalist troops have long demanded that his statue at Taipei's memorial hall also be removed.
