Taipei, Taiwan - LIBERTY SQUARE 1 of 2

Taiwan with a population of 24 million, is a country with a strong Chinese cultural background that is very traditional (family oriented) but also is a country that in many ways is still trying to find itself (see our writeup on Kaohsiung, Taiwan for background).

Although social classes do not exist in the traditional sense it does through education distinctions, making up the various “classes” – beginning with scholars, peasants, workers, merchants and then soldiers (except when at war when they are elevated).

Sun Yat-Sen was a revolutionary and believed that China should be a republic run by the people and become a modern competitive nation (and look at where we are today). He is honored with a memorial at the entrance of the National Palace Museum but “the credit” for modern Taiwan is given to Chiang Kai-Shek.

After Sun Yat-Sen’s death in 1925, the Nationalist Party, with political maneuvering and a coup d’etat in China by Chiang Kai-Shek, allowed him to take over and in 1926, his army began. He was a military leader who believed in a strong central government. After the long 8-year war (1937-45) with Japan, Taiwan was returned to China after 50 years of Japanese occupation. Civil war recommenced in 1946; by 1949 Chiang had lost continental China to the communists, and the People’s Republic of China was established. Unfortunately, China Communists, backed by the Soviet Union, to help escalate their rebellion by 1949, caused the mainland to be overrun and Chiang’s conservative seat of government was moved to Taiwan. Chiang moved to Taiwan with the remnants of his Nationalist forces. Chiang reformed the ranks of the once-corrupt Nationalist Party, and with the help of American aid he succeeded in the next two decades in setting Taiwan on the road to modern economic development.

In 1955 the United States signed an agreement with Chiang’s Nationalist government on Taiwan guaranteeing its defense. Of course, from 1972 -1979 US relations with Taiwan were not good because of good relations with China. After that time, unofficial relations between the 2 countries improved consistently as reliance on each other’s exports grew. In recent years, the US has been strengthening this support of Taiwan.

After Chiang's death, in the 1980s and 1990s moved to increase native Taiwanese representation in the government and loosen the many authoritarian controls of the early era of ROC control in Taiwan, paving way for the democratization process.

Chiang was a very complicated leader and his politics and alliances often looked like Capitalism, Fascism, Communism or some hybrid version that worked in each circumstance. He was conservative but at the same time supported modernization policies in science, advanced technology, education for all and women’s rights.

After the period of Japanese occupation, the country has tried to eliminate most of the Japanese culture that was here and make it more tradition Chinese backed by the Constitution which supports and funds cultural work.

The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, as well as the Concert Hall and National Theater at Liberty Square began in 1976 after his death. The memorial hall is white with a blue roof, representing the dominant colors in the ROC flag; while the emblem of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) adorns the vaulted ceiling. A bronze statue of Chiang looks west symbolically to the Presidential Office Building and mainland China. The front plaza of the hall is also a major venue for democratic assemblies of all types.

It was quite an impressive 2.5 million square foot plaza and it was obvious that people come here to celebrate all different important occasions. We learned a lot about its history and that of Chiang Kai-Shek while visiting this austere and important Liberty Plaza and while we spent a long time watching the importance of their changing of the guard ceremony and listening to people’s conversations and respect for the history that led to their freedom.Read more