Taiwan to rename Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall for political purpose

Mar 1, 2007, 12:59 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan, to assert its sovereignty and to erase the influence of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, said on Thursday that it will rename the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei as Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.

Premier Su Tseng-chang made the instruction while receiving the administrators of the CKS Memorial Hall. Government spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan said the renaming will be carried out soon.

'In Taipei, we should have an open space with easy access to locals like the Hyde Park in London and the Central Park in New York, and not an enclosed space surrounded by high walls,' Su said.

'So the walls of the CKS Memorial Hall will be torn down and the hall will be renamed as Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall,' he said.

The CKS Memorial Hall, a main tourist attraction in central Taipei, is a white 70-metre tall white granite building flanked by the National Theatre and National Concert Hall which are called the National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center.

The three buildings are inside an enclosed square measuring 250,000 square metres.

The CKS Memorial Hall was built by late president Chiang Ching-kuo to commemorate his father Chiang Kai-shek who died in 1975. Chiang Ching-kuo served as Taiwan president from 1978 until he died of illness in 1988.

The renaming of the CKS Memorial Hall is the latest move in Taiwan's 'name-change campaign' to assert its sovereignty and to erase the influence of the Chinese Nationalist Government, which fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile after losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

The Chinese Nationalists ruled Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China, until 2000 when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidential election and DPP leader Chen Shui-bian became president.

Chen has been promoting Taiwan as a sovereignty state, not part of China. In October last year, Chen launched the name-change campaign to remove 'China' and 'Chinese' from enterprise names.

So far Chen has renamed the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport as Taoyuan International Airport, Chinese Petroleum Corp as Taiwan Chinese Petroleum Corp, China Shipbuilding Corp as Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corp and Chunghwa Post Co Ltd as Taiwan Post Co Ltd. 'Chunghwa' means 'Chinese.'

On Wednesday, Taiwan issued its first stamp bearing 'Taiwan' to replace old stamps which bore 'Republic of China.'