What’s in a name? Proposal to rename Taiwan’s Zhongzheng Roads reignites transitional justice debate

TAIPEI – With more than 300 roads across the island carrying this name, Zhongzheng Road is Taiwan’s most common – and contentious – street name. 

And they may all disappear, if the government’s proposal to rename every Zhongzheng Road goes to plan. 

When Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior resurfaced the initiative on June 2, it sparked immediate backlash from local officials, who condemned it as a waste of money. 

In New Taipei city alone, officials estimate that it could cost upwards of NT$60 million (S$2.6 million) to rename all 22 Zhongzheng Roads across the city’s 18 administrative districts, to replace not just the major street signs but also individual home address plaques. 

The ministry, however, has defended the move as a human rights issue and one that must be taken seriously. 

“The government cannot pretend to look at transitional justice only when there is money to do so, as that attitude does not reflect Taiwan’s democracy and rule of law,” Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang told reporters.

The controversy stems from the complicated legacy of Taiwan’s longest-serving head of state, Chiang Kai-shek, who had used Zhongzheng as his adopted name. 

As the leader of the then ruling Kuomintang (KMT) in China, Chiang fought a civil war with the Communist Party of China after World War II and lost. He fled with his government to Taiwan in 1949, where he ruled as president until his death in 1975.

His authoritarian rule under martial law was controversial, and while democratic reforms were undertaken by his son Chiang Ching-kuo, the current ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been taking measures under its transitional justice policy to right historical injustices of the authoritarian era.

Changing the name of the Zhongzheng Roads is one of these moves.

The hundreds of Zhongzheng Roads across the island had been named after Chiang following a post-war push by the KMT government to replace any symbols of Japanese colonialism. Until 1945, Taiwan had been under Japanese rule for 50 years. One of the busiest Zhongzheng Roads in the southern city of Tainan, for example, formerly bore the Japanese name Suehirocho.

The name has a Singapore connection. When Chinese philanthropists founded Chung Cheng High School – Zhongzheng Zhongxue in Mandarin – on Kim Yan Road in 1939, they named it after Chiang. This was an “indication that the Chinese community in Singapore was actively engaged with affairs in China then”, according to the National Heritage Board. China at the time was fighting a war with Japan that began in 1937 and ended in 1945.

But while some in Taiwan today see Chiang as a strong leader who fought against the communists and oversaw the island’s path to economic prosperity, he is equally despised as a dictator who ruled with an iron fist.

“For some Taiwanese, anything related to Chiang is a reminder of a painful authoritarian past,” said Assistant Professor Ma Chun-wei, a political science analyst from New Taipei’s Tamkang University.

Complicated legacy

Taiwan transitioned to a democracy from the late 1980s and ranks among Asia’s freest societies today, but it continues to wrestle with its authoritarian past.

For its part, the modern KMT has taken steps to atone for its history. While serving as justice minister, former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou helped establish a foundation in 1995 to raise awareness of the White Terror years – a period of martial law covering almost four decades of brutal political purges from 1949 to 1987.

But it was only after President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP took office in 2016 that transitional justice work was made a top priority. 

In 2018, her administration set up a commission to review and redress injustices committed during the period of authoritarian rule. This included exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals and going after assets illegally obtained by the KMT during its rule.

Among the commission’s top recommendations was also the physical removal of all “authoritarian symbols”, including any roads named after Chiang. In 2022, for instance, a section of Zhongzheng Road in Tainan city’s West Central District was renamed Thng Tik-Tsiong Boulevard, in honour of the human rights lawyer who was executed by KMT troops in 1947.

Taiwan’s main airport Taoyuan International Airport, formerly known as the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport or Zhongzheng International Airport in Chinese, was given its current name in 2006.

Other symbols include the many busts and statues of Chiang scattered across the island – the most prominent of which is the towering statue inside Taipei’s National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, where millions of tourists flock every year to take selfies and watch the changing of the guard.

Over the years, the government has made sporadic attempts to remove these symbols, albeit with limited success. 

While hundreds of Chiang’s statues have since been removed from Taiwan’s schools, parks and other public spaces, there are still some 760 statues dotting the island as at April 2024.

Efforts to dismantle all of the symbols have consistently faced roadblocks, including protests from those who say that the move amounts to erasing history. 

“Even among KMT supporters today, Chiang is no longer revered, but they cannot deny his contributions to Taiwan’s development,” said Prof Ma.

For now, the Ministry of the Interior said that it will engage officials from local governments – which would be in charge of executing the road sign changes – before proceeding further. But it will continue to promote its plan in line with transitional justice efforts, said Minister Liu. 

“I understand many people are still sorting through their feelings about the past – and historical representations of it – which is why we will keep our communication on the issue open and clear,” she said on June 4. 

“However, our position on the issue has not changed, and we will continue to promote the removal of the vestiges of authoritarianism,” she said, adding that the ministry provides subsidies for the renaming of streets. 

Several municipal government officials, many of them from the opposition KMT, have voiced objections to the ministry’s proposal. 

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, who is Chiang Kai-shek’s great-grandson, accused the ruling party of politicising issues and not doing actual work. 

Meanwhile, New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih, also from the KMT, condemned the ministry’s proposal as “meaningless”. 

“What people need is help to solve their problems. Does it make sense for the government to spend money on things like this?” he said. 

Ms Victoria Lin, a resident living on Zhongzheng Road in New Taipei’s Zhonghe District, opposes the renaming of her road for a more pragmatic reason. “Do you know how much trouble it will be to have to change my home address with the banks and all that?” said the 39-year-old, who is in real estate.