TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) sharply rebuked President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) on Monday (June 30) over what he characterized as a misrepresentation of Taiwan's constitutional history. The mayor's criticism centered on President Lai's assertion during his third installment of the "Ten Lectures on National Unity" (團結國家十講), a presidential speech series on national identity, that Taiwan had not sent representatives to participate in the drafting of the Republic of China Constitution in 1946, a period when Taiwan was transitioning from Japanese colonial rule.
Mayor Chiang, whose grandfather was the late President Chiang Ching-kuo, emphasized that a sitting president of the Republic of China should not "erase the history" of the very government he leads. The Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan's main opposition party that historically governed the island for decades after relocating from mainland China in 1949, swiftly backed the mayor's position. Party officials pointed out that Taiwan had 18 representatives at the National Assembly (國民大會), the constitutional drafting body, directly contradicting President Lai's characterization of events from nearly eight decades ago.
The presidential office moved quickly to address the mounting controversy. Office of the President (總統府) spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) offered a clarification of Lai's remarks, stating that the president was specifically referring to the lack of direct democratic elections for constitutional representatives in 1946. Kuo elaborated that only after seven subsequent constitutional amendments did Taiwan's citizenry gain the authority to drive constitutional revisions through democratic processes. In an apparent acknowledgment of the dispute's sensitivity, observers noted that the presidential office had already removed the contested portions from the official press release documenting the third lecture in the series. ◼