While President Chen Shui-bian (
The happy event on Saturday was hosted by Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator Yen Chin-piao (
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
The hypocrisy of criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government's corruption and incompetence while affirming ties with criminals such as Yen seemed to escape the pan-blue leadership.
What contempt for the rule of law.
Yen began his career as a gangster in central Taiwan. He was later charged with corruption during his term as Taichung County Council speaker. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined NT$10 million by the Taichung District Court in August 2001. Despite being in jail, he was elected a legislator in December that year.
In January 2002, the Taiwan High Court reduced his sentence to 11 years and six months, and cut his fine to NT$6 million. He was released on bail for NT$5 million and has remained free since then. He still faces other charges, however, ranging from firearms possession to attempted murder.
Yen, who became a legislator in February 2002, is basically an independent. There was no need for senior KMT officials to grace his son's wedding and use the most mendacious flattery to praise a man who is a convicted criminal.
The courts are also turning a blind eye to someone who has been out on bail for nearly four years, saying nothing as he puts on a lavish celebration that can only serve to undermine the public's faith in the judiciary.
The government's silence also offers a glaring example of its incompetence. The opposition could have used this occasion to take the government to task, but instead has gone out of its way to cosy up to a man with known criminal connections.
During the 2000 presidential election, the DPP exposed the close ties between the KMT and criminal figures such as Yen, Chang Jung-wei (
Now, in its turn, the DPP is tolerating gangsters. This should be cause for the public to demand that it take a firm stance on criminal behavior and judicial reform, in order to fortify the last line of defense for the nation's civil society.
As for the KMT, when it fell from power in 2000, it promised to cut all ties to "black gold" figures. Last summer, Ma, in his campaign for the chairmanship of the KMT, defeated Wang on an anti-black-gold platform. Despite these promises of change, the KMT leadership has decided to continue to walk hand-in-hand with criminals. The party, and Ma in particular, is likely to pay a heavy price for renewing its vows with sleaze.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
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
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
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,
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