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This article sheds light on the ways in which township governments mobilized resources from local financial institutions, and how failure to repay many of these loans gave rise to sizeable local government debt. Mobilization of resources was done through loans to collective enterprises whose de facto owners were township authorities. Though the enterprises were nominal borrowers, loan transactions would not have occurred without guarantees by township governments. Another way of financial resource mobilization was by establishing local informal financial organizations that were subject to less strict regulations, and over which township authorities could exercise control. Further, because the enterprises' profits and taxes ultimately went to township authorities, and the enterprises also contributed towards provision of public goods that were the authorities' obligation, enterprise financing became a roundabout way in which township authorities sought financial assistance for their fiscal needs.

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This article explores attempts that were made by pro-independence political forces in Taiwan between the mid-1990s and 2008 to purge the remnants of the Chiang Kai-shek personality cult from Taiwan's landscape. It explores a set of policies culminating in the renaming of Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in January 2008, and which were referred to in the Taiwanese media as quJianghua -'de-Chiang-Kai-shek-ification'. This article demonstrates, however, that rather than resulting in Chiang's removal from historical debates in Taiwan, the contradictory policies that were pursued in this era have led to the emergence of new interpretations of Chiang and his legacy on the island.

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