CKS Memorial Hall honor guard performs 1st handover ceremony outdoors

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) The military honor guard handover ceremony at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, a popular tourist attraction, was performed outdoors for the first time on Democracy Boulevard on Monday, marking a significant change to the 44-year-old ritual.

Several hundred Taiwanese and foreign spectators braved high summer temperatures to watch the ceremonial guards depart from the northeast and southwest gates of the main hall and converge on the boulevard in the 15-minute ceremony starting at 9 a.m.

Henceforth, the ceremony will be performed once every hour on the hour from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the boulevard, the 40 meter-wide, 380 meter-long avenue paved with stone slabs in front of the main hall, weather permitting.

Prior to Monday, honor guards were stationed inside the main hall in front of a large bronze statue of late President Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), with the handover ceremonies also conducted there.

The flag-raising and lowering duties at 6 a.m. and 6:10 p.m. will continue at the CKS Memorial Hall, the Ministry of Defense stated in a press release on July 12.

The relocation of the honor guard ceremony from inside the main hall to the boulevard is part of measures intended to achieve transitional justice and reduce any "cult of personality" and "veneration of authoritarianism," the Ministry of Culture said on that same day.

The honor guard has been in place at the CKS Memorial Hall since its opening in 1980.

Chiang Kai-shek's legacy is a controversial issue in Taiwan. Critics say he was a dictator who imposed political repression (known as the "White Terror") during the martial law period from 1949 to 1987.