President Ma Ying-jeou met with Mr. Richard Sousa, Senior Associate Director and Research Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, on the morning of June 9 at the Presidential Office. The president extended a warm welcome to Mr. Sousa on his visit to Taiwan.
The president commented that three years ago he attended the ceremonies marking the unveiling of the Modern China Archives Project and had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Sousa then. At the time, the Hoover Institution and the Kuomintang engaged in cooperation to preserve the historical records held at the party's archives. The diaries of late President Chiang Kai-shek and late President Chiang Ching-kuo were microfilmed and copies have been stored at the Hoover Institution. The project has been extremely successful, he said. Due to its efforts in this regard, the Hoover Institution has become a hub for research into modern Chinese history, the president said. The Hoover Institution has also collected historical documents related to many important figures in modern Chinese history, and the information on the Chiangs further rounds out the organization's collection. The president remarked that many scholars have headed to the Hoover Institution to engage in research and have produced works using the latest documents collected.
Harvard University research associate Jay Taylor, the author of The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan, has produced a new biography, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China, based on the new data available. The book not only uses historical data collected about the late president, but also reassesses Chiang Kai-shek's role in history, President Ma noted. In the book, Mr. Taylor argues that while late President Chiang Kai-shek lost the Chinese civil war, he was instrumental in establishing a free and democratic Taiwan. His historical accomplishments, Mr. Taylor wrote, do not pale in comparison to Mao Zedong. The book has been widely discussed in academic circles and has won critical acclaim, the president commented.
President Ma furthermore said that while students of history may come to differing interpretations of events, the most important thing is that they have ample historical documentation. The Hoover Institution's diaries of the two late presidents, and especially the diaries kept by late President Chiang Kai-shek over a period of 57 years, are extremely candid. This is very rare to see in a political figure's diaries, making them all the more valuable as historical source materials, he said.
President Ma expressed his hopes that Mr. Sousa will take advantage of his time here to meet with people from various historical research institutes and also understand conditions here in recent years. The president also said he desires to see even more opportunities for cooperation with the Hoover Institution in the future.