The nation's most-wanted economic criminals all happen to support one particular presidential candidate and oppose the other.
They act like Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
These criminals have one thing in common; that is, they all "do business" in China after leaving behind huge debts. As fugitives on the run, one might suppose they would keep a low profile. On the contrary, these criminals have pushed themselves into the limelight, speaking with straight faces and compelling confidence.
The only reasonable explanation for their weird behavior is that they have made deals with Beijing. Maybe in exchange for asylum, they not only need to bribe the Chinese officials with the money they stole from Taiwan but also have to act like Beijing-hired political roughnecks at critical times. Their situation is similar to some businesspeople who were accused of spying in China a while ago, who also had to censure Chen ruthlessly on television.
These criminals' pro-Lien rantings against Chen took place in China. A lot of unexpected things happen there anyway.
What worries us, actually, is Taiwan's media.
Most of Taiwan's media outlets chose to side with those criminals by echoing their theories and treating them as righteous, and our government as evil.
These fugitives are economic criminals and thieves. They are by no means "political prisoners" in the sense that international human-rights organizations understand the term. It does not make sense for the Taiwanese media to dance to their tune.
Is it possible that owners of these media corporations suffer from the same problem as these criminals -- that they face enormous financial debts and are trying to reverse the situation by helping corrupt political forces to make a comeback?
If so, then no matter how hard Chen tries to prevent the comeback of bribery and corruption, the public will not be informed correctly because the power to interpret news is in the hands of those whose interests are embedded in corruption.
Thus, it is not difficult to understand why Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
The reason why the economic criminals can flamboyantly criticize the president is because they are backed by the Chinese Communist Party as well as the pro-China media and politicians in Taiwan.
The pan-blues voluntarily embrace the red star flag. Politicians attempted to incite an international dispute over a recent custody fight between Taiwanese and Brazilian families and used the incident to attack the government. One pro-China media outlet even compared the incident to Taiwan's reluctance to return to China.
Obviously, this election campaign, entangled with the evil forces of China and the thieves that took away NT$2 trillion, is truly a complicated and difficult one.
Lao Pao is a commentator who focuses on politics.
Translated by Jennie Shih
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS