Published: January 23, 2008
Some netizens have described me as an undutiful descendant of the Chiang family in Taiwan. They have accused me -- the great-grandson of President Chiang Kai-shek and grandson of President Chiang Ching-kuo -- of trying to please the opposing camp by criticizing my two ancestors. They have emphasized that the great historical achievements of the two President Chiangs cannot be erased.
On the other hand, other netizens have claimed that the two President Chiangs were killers, responsible for ending many people's lives. They say I cannot wipe out their evils by simply posting my articles online.
To me this is a fearful thing. As long as there is still a group of people in Taiwan wanting to hold up the two Chiangs as gods, and another group holding deep hatred for these two even though they passed away a long time ago, both the blue and green camps can utilize the two Chiangs as totems of fear to manipulate elections. But whenever the two parties manipulate the two Chiangs as a cheap and easy way of winning votes, it is a torment to my family and it is harmful to all of Taiwan.
Did the two Chiangs do things wrong? Certainly.
Unless your heart is locked up tight, even though you cover your eyes and ears and do not search for the information below, it will invade your awareness involuntarily in this era of Web 2.0.
If some people still doubt the facts regarding the February 28th Massacre (of 1947) despite the research done by many people, we may put it aside temporarily. But what about the documents that have been released in which many death penalties were approved by my great-grandfather?
Moreover, the book titled "Death by Government," written by Professor R. J. Rummel from the University of Hawaii, a foreigner who has no relations with our people, listed my great-grandfather Chiang Kai-shek as the fourth biggest killer of the 20th century, after Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler. Rummel reports that the Kuomintang government killed about 10 million Chinese from 1921 to 1948, among the top 10 governments in killing people.
One may say that the statistics are incomplete or incorrect, but even if we discount all but 10 percent it will still be 1 million lives. Again, one may attribute this to the situation at the time, or claim that the killings were necessary. However, it cannot be denied that my great-grandfather was head of the government that carried out these killings, even though he himself did not pull the trigger.
Under the leadership of my grandfather, President Chiang Ching-kuo, there were also several scandals possibly related to the government.
For example, in 1984 Chiang Nan, the American Chinese author of the "Biography of Chiang Ching-kuo," was assassinated in his own garage in the United States by Taiwanese intelligence agents. His wife then accused the KMT government and received US$145 million in compensation. Furthermore, under pressure from the U.S. government, the head of the Special Military Intelligence Office of the Republic of China at that time, Wang Hsi-ling, was tried in Taiwan and sentenced to life in prison for this murder.
The television program "Wang Hsi-ling's Special Room" shown in the recently opened Taiwan Human Rights Memorial shows that Wang's prison quarters included a suite with a reception room, a study and even a kitchen. People said that his family could freely visit him and stay there with him. If the KMT government had nothing to do with Chiang Nan's assassination, why was Wang granted such privileges in prison and why was the victim's wife given so much money as a compromise after she brought the matter to a U.S. court? (Editor's note: Wang was released after being in prison for more than 6 years.)
Besides the Chiang Nan case, there are several other unresolved crimes that are suspected of connections with the KMT government of that time.
The Chen Wen-cheng incident occurred in 1981, in which Chen, an associate professor from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, died mysteriously during a short visit to his family in Taiwan. Before his death, Chen had been interrogated by the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Military Intelligence Office over his financial support for "Formosa Magazine," an independent pro-democracy publication in Taiwan. In 1980, the Lin Bloody Incident occurred, in which family members of dissident Lin I-Hsiung, a victim of the Kaohsiung Incident, were crazily killed in their home.
Certainly, the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979 (also known as the Formosa Incident), in which pro-democracy demonstrations were put down by police and their leaders jailed, was also a scandal for the KMT government under my grandfather's leadership.
Do you think I am happy to know all of this? Looking at all the evidence, as a descendant of the two Chiangs, my first instinct was to reject all these facts. But after digesting all the objective information and reports, I gradually formed the conclusion that the two Chiangs did some things wrong, which dramatically uprooted the value system implanted in my mind. Even after adjusting to this, it took a long time before I could discuss this topic frankly with others.
The truth is out there, whether you deny it or not. Stubborn denial will not make these incidents disappear. The best way to deal with the facts of history is to accept them with a healthy attitude and try to make up for them as much as possible. Unfortunately, with my limited capability, I can do nothing but offer verbal apologies generations after these events occurred.
(To be continued.)
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(Demos Chiang is chairman of DEM Inc., an advertising design studio in Taiwan, which he founded after returning from the United States where he graduated from New York University. He is noted as the first member of Chiang Kai-Shek's family to apologize for the wrongdoings of the KMT government under the two Chiangs' leadership. He began a personal blog in January 2008 to explain his views. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.ncn.org and www.yubou.tw . ©Copyright Demos Chiang.)
http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Politics/2008/01/23/the_burden_of_the_chiang_legacy_1/6556/
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