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China may jump ahead Taiwan to publish Chiang diaries: scholars

Taipei, Dec. 3 (CNA) China may jump ahead of Taiwan to publish late President Chiang Kai-shek's diaries as his descendants have yet to reach aconsensus over who has the right to authorize the use of the historical documents, scholars said Friday.

Chinese scholars are known to have been copying Chiang's diaries at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and, according to a professor of history at National Chengchi University, Liu Wei-kai, if China has organized a "group effort, " it could publish what its scholars have handcopied from the U.S. ahead of Taiwan.

Without coordination over this matter, Liu said Taiwan may lose its advantage in the research of modern Chinese history, Liu said. "If mainland China wins over the right to interpret history, Taiwan may be further marginalized," he said.

Huang Ke-wu, director of the Institute of Modern History of Academia Sinica, agreed, saying if the research community here cannot have an easy access to the historical materials, "how can we fight an academic warfare?"

He urged the government to get the Chiang house in order and publish the late president's diaries quickly, so that local students will be able to use the historical data more conveniently....
Read entire article at Focus Taiwan