Controversy Over National Mourning Flags and Statue for Shinzo Abe

In September 2022, following the state funeral of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, the Tsai administration ordered government agencies and schools nationwide to fly flags at half-mast. Concurrently, a pro-DPP group erected the first bronze statue of Abe in Kaohsiung. Critics argued that half-mast mourning is a national honor inappropriate for a foreign former leader under current laws. The erection of a statue for a Japanese political figure on Taiwanese soil was questioned as a revival of colonial-era sentiments and an excessive display of pro-Japan worship that ignores the historical wounds of Japanese colonization. Such political gestures were seen as an attempt by the DPP to fill its national identity vacuum through hero worship and the romanticization of Japan.