TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A large bronze statue of Taiwan’s former dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) has been removed from a public square in the Yilan County town of Suao, and will reportedly be sent to Taoyuan’s Cihu park to join the growing number of discarded Chiang likenesses that have found a new home there.

The approximately 500 kg bronze statue was installed in 1982 and was removed from outside the Suao Township Office on Tuesday (April 18) to make way for the reconstruction of a surrounding public square, per CNA. Suao Mayor Li Ming-che (李明哲) said the statue was either going to be rehomed at the Yilan County Military Memorial Shrine or Taoyuan’s Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park, but Cihu was eventually chosen as the Yilan location said there was no space.

Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park is already home to about 150 of Taiwan’s unwanted Chiang Kai Shek statues, out of over 1,000 that remain throughout the country as of 2018. Cihu Park is also the home to Chiang’s Mausoleum, itself a source of controversy. A pro-Taiwan independence group filed a lawsuit against Taipei City Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) in March, attempting to compel him to bury his great-grandfather.

The statue’s removal is part of a wider effort to remove symbols of Taiwan’s authoritarian past amid debates over the inclusion of authoritarian symbols in national spaces. In March, the Tainan City government announced that area schools and school facilities named after Chiang would be renamed.

Opposition to authoritarian symbols in Taiwan is not a new phenomenon, with repeated instances of Chiang statues being vandalized and an increased number of references to the leader being removed from public spaces since the end of martial law in 1987.

The Suao Chiang statue will be rehomed in Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park following the completion of renovations later this year.