Taiwan park wants to erect Mao statue in Chiang Kai-shek park

Mar 30, 2010, 4:38 GMT

Taipei - A Taiwan town wants to erect a statue of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong in a park that is home to 140 statues of Chiang Kai-shek, arguing that the addition would promote Taiwan-China peace and attract Chinese tourists, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The two battlefield enemies could face off once again in Tahsi, where local Taiwan governments and schools sent their Chiang statues after the island embraced democracy in the 1990s and ended the Chiang personality cult.

The town one hour's drive from Taipei plans to obtain a Mao statue from China and erect it in its Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park, the China Times said. Mayor Huang Jui-sung told the newspaper that erecting the statue could help promote Taiwan-China reconciliation and bring in more tourist dollars.

'Currently, 20 coaches of Chinese tourists visit the park every day,' the paper quoted him as saying. 'When the Mao statue stands side by side with a Chiang Kai-shek statue, it will be a new magnet for Chinese tourists.'

It was not clear whether Taiwan would allow the import of the Mao statue.

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top China policy-planning body, said Tahsi must file an application so the council and the Bureau of Foreign Trade could make a decision in line with rules governing cross-strait contacts, the Times said.

The proposal by Tahsi has drawn mixed reactions from Taiwan residents. Some supported it while others called it absurd because Mao and Chiang were rivals during the Chinese Civil War, which ended in 1949 with Chiang losing the mainland to Mao and fleeing to Taiwan to set up his government-in-exile.

Chiang ruled Taiwan with an iron fist until he died in 1975. His son, Chiang Ching-kuo, served as president from 1978 until his death in 1988.

During their rule, Chiang Kai-shek statues appeared all over Taiwan - at road crossings, in army barracks and on school campuses.

Many of those statues were removed in the 1990s and sent to Tahsi, whose park became known as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park.