If former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
But Ma argues an intriguing case: How can he be indicted for corruption for transferring public funds to his private account when so many senior politicians around him are seemingly far more deserving of prosecution on these and many other terms?
The point is interesting for two reasons. It shines a bright light on an entrenched culture of graft in the nation's bureaucracies, and it shows that Ma thinks there is such a thing as relative graft -- in his own case, he would argue, any "graft" should be blamed on the system and not his squeaky-clean self.
A lot of people are sympathetic to this point of view. Taiwan is a country, after all, that has become wealthy and free in a context of compromise and pragmatism. This nation's inglorious culture of administrative graft and perks is so familiar and inoffensive that even some pan-green-camp moderates will be privately scratching their heads at how Ma could end up being indicted when political parties are filled to the brim with people whose decades of wealth accumulation -- far greater than the paltry amount Ma is accused of embezzling -- would struggle to stand up to rigorous investigation.
The KMT itself, up until recently, was a wealth magnet in which those who knew how to play the game could make immense amounts of money. As party chairman, Ma was its protector, and while he protests his innocence on a personal level, it should be made clear that Ma did nothing to hold the party accountable to the nation for its decades of theft of public and private property.
Ma's public image is enhanced by rank stupidity from senior Democratic Progressive Party officials who ought to know better. Caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
Ma's language also appears more moderate against the pitiful huffing and puffing of KMT hacks such as caucus whip Tseng Yung-chuan (
A more considered assessment of Tuesday's events comes from political scientist June Teufel Dreyer, who summed up Ma's response with the word "cunning."
Cunning, indeed. There is a strong case that Ma's tribulations will have hurt his presidential chances: Enemies in the KMT will try to make hay out of his misfortune, and moderate voters in both camps may now be experiencing second thoughts about the man international news agencies love to call "handsome." But Ma has pre-empted party enemies -- the terminally evasive Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The idea peddled by some wire agencies that Ma has suffered a "fatal blow" is utter nonsense. His eyes are now firmly and publicly on the presidency, and his first priority is to secure the KMT nomination. This is not a done deal, but if Tuesday's events have taught us anything, it is that Ma is now, finally, spoiling for a fight. The handsome effete has been blooded, and his pan-blue-camp supporters are still standing by his side: Let the presidential campaign begin.
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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