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Chiang Kai-shek to be buried in Taiwan at last
2004-07-09
TAIPEI - Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will be buried at last -- three decades after his death and after his successors failed to realise his dream of reclaiming the Chinese mainland from Mao Zedong's communists.Chiang fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the mainland in a bloody civil war and died on the island in 1975. His remains lie embalmed in a "temporary" mausoleum in the northern Taiwan city of Taoyuan, awaiting a proper burial on the mainland. His son and successor as president, Chiang Ching-kuo, also lies in Taoyuan awaiting a permanent resting place. The Defence Ministry said on Thursday that descendants of the Chiang family had asked the government to hold a state burial for the late presidents and to entomb them in a military cemetery in Taipei. "The ministry will respect the will of the late presidents' family," it said. A state burial was tentatively scheduled for March or April next year, it said. It did not say whether Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who died in New York last year aged 106, would be buried beside her husband. The Chiang family could not be reached for comment. Chiang Kai-shek ruled Taiwan with an iron fist, using martial law to suppress democracy and to crush local yearnings for a formal split from China. Some view him as a hero for keeping the island out of reach of Beijing's communists and for fostering a freewheeling market economy. Chiang Ching-kuo is respected for ending martial law in 1987, shortly before his death, thus unleashing the democratic forces that broke his family's dynastic grip on power and eventually ended the Nationalist Party's half-century rule in Taiwan. Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), once a lawyer for rag-tag underground dissidents, swept to power in the 2000 presidential election and was narrowly re-elected for a second term in March this year. "We will let history judge the deeds of the two Chiangs. But we welcome the fact that the Chiang family now sees Taiwan as their eternal and only home," said DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang. The only Chiang descendant now active in Taiwan politics is John Chang, a Nationalist lawmaker, who was born out of wedlock to Chiang Ching-kuo. Reuters
Ç°ËÕÁª¿Ë¸ñ²ªÌع¤Åû¶ÁÖ±ëԪ˧ËÀÍöµÄ¾ªÈËÄÚÄ» (2008-09-28)Chiang Kai-shek to be buried in Taiwan at last (2004-07-09)Chronology of Taiwan-China relations since 1945 (2000-05-19)3 (11285)
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