Renaming of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall - Proposal

Proposal

In 2006 37 DPP legislators proposed that Chiang Kai-shek's memorial be relocated to his tomb at Cihu and that the current structure be renamed Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (Chinese: 台灣民主紀念館, Chinese: 台湾民主纪念馆). They noted that the law authorizing a memorial for Chiang does not specify the site; a change in locale could thus be enacted by a simple executive order.

The proposal attracted support from other Pan-Green officials. Pan-Green leaders saw the idea as another step in the direction of rectifying names and symbols associated with the authoritarian past of the ROC government to make them more inclusive and characteristic of local Taiwanese culture. Pan-Blue officials resisted the measure. Few expressed open support of Chiang Kai-shek or one-party rule, arguing instead that the move represented unnecessary expense and election-year theater and that the localization of Taiwan's place names and symbols represented a treacherous effort to desinicize the culture of the lands controlled by the Republic of China.