Taipei, Taiwan—Taiwanese soldiers will stop performing elaborate changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of late president Chiang Kai-shek to avoid “worshipping authoritarianism,” the government said on Friday.
The fate of the 6.3-meter (21-foot) bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
The changing of the guard there each hour is a major tourist draw, but starting Monday, the ceremony will be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, which leads to Chiang’s eponymous blue-and-white memorial hall—one of the island’s most recognizable landmarks.
“Eliminating worshipping a cult of personality and eliminating worshipping authoritarianism is the current goal for promoting transitional justice” at the monument, Taiwan’s culture ministry said in a statement.
“The military honor guards’ sentry duty at the hall will be removed… but their performances will be maintained, with the venue moving to the Democracy Boulevard.”
Chiang and his nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) troops fled from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949 to set up a rival government after losing a civil war to communist forces.
He is now seen by many as the embodiment of a brutal military regime that exiled, imprisoned and killed thousands of opponents until his death in 1975.
For many Taiwanese youth, he is also synonymous with the kind of authoritarianism seen in mainland China, which views Taiwan as its territory and has not renounced the use of force to bring the self-ruled island under its control.
Hundreds of other statues of Chiang have already been moved to a lakeside park close to his mausoleum in the northern city of Taoyuan.
Families of the victims of a 1947 massacre by his nationalist troops have long demanded his statue in the Taipei hall likewise be removed.
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