A resident pushes his wheelchair in the hallway of Taoyuan Veterans Home in Taoyuan, Taiwan October 26, 2023. Taiwan's veterans department does not keep exact numbers on how many soldiers who fought against China are still alive.
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As of last year, it lists about 56,000 male veterans aged 85 and above, who would have been old enough to fight in that war. The veteran's home in Taoyuan is surrounded by mementoes of past conflict, including an old fighter plane and a tank flaking its entrance.
A large statue of former president Chiang Kai-shek, reviled by many Taiwanese as a despot but revered by others for fighting Mao's Communists, stands in the courtyard where the veterans exercise or are pushed about in wheelchairs.
