Taiwanese students vandalise statue of island’s former leader Chiang Kai-shek
- Protesters saw leg off, throw paint over statue, saying it ‘represents dictatorship’
- Chiang ruled Taiwan with an iron fist until his death in 1975
A controversial statue of former Taiwanese leader Chiang Kai-shek was vandalised in Taipei on Friday, stoking tensions over the island’s fractious relationship with Beijing a week before it marks the anniversary of a massacre by nationalist Chinese troops.
An estimated 28,000 people were killed in the 1947 crackdown on island-wide riots after mainland troops were called in to quell the unrest under Chiang, whose Kuomintang (KMT) party governed Taiwan as part of China at the time.
Revered as a hero by the island’s pro-China camp for fighting the Communists but despised as a dictator by many Taiwanese, Chiang ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975.
Public statues of the authoritarian leader are regularly vandalised and hundreds now lie discarded in the grounds of his mausoleum outside Taipei.
The latest statue to be hit shows Chiang riding a horse. Bright paint was thrown on it, and one of the horse’s legs was sawed off.