The allegations of money laundering that have surfaced over the last week against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) have led to a frenzied debate about what can be done to prevent dishonest politicians from profiting from positions of power.
As usual, the pro-unification media have done their best to paint Chen as guilty, acting as judge and jury with sensationalized reports of underground money transfers and overseas bank accounts. Prosecutors’ investigations are ongoing, however, and Chen has yet to be charged, let alone convicted, of anything. It could be a number of years before we know the result of any trial.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), embarrassed by the revelations about its former leader and party strongman, has proposed measures to strengthen the regulation of public functionaries’ assets.
The changes would make unexplained and exorbitant income punishable by fines or a prison sentence.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), meanwhile — perhaps emboldened by its overwhelming victories in this year’s legislative and presidential elections — seems to think that a party that controls billions of NT dollars in stolen assets is worthy of bearing the “anti-corruption” mantle.
After electoral gains won in part because of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) promises of clean government, the KMT sees Chen’s apparent downfall as an opportunity to strengthen its image as an organization staunchly opposed to corruption.
This, despite the fact that the KMT-dominated legislature failed to act on a proposal similar to that of the DPP during the last legislative session and has stalled a batch of promising “sunshine laws” for years.
One might be forgiven for having some faith in the shower of promises to clean up the system in the wake of the Chen scandal but for the complete lack of action that was displayed when a similar problem arose last year.
When Ma was indicted on embezzlement charges relating to his special mayoral allowance during his tenure as Taipei mayor there was a cacophony of calls to reform the fundamentally flawed special allowance system.
More than a year and lots of hot air later, absolutely nothing has been done.
There has been no reform, no amnesty for past offenders and no action taken, other than a host of prominent pan-green camp members and former government officials being indicted over alleged misuse of their funds.
Given the inaction on the special allowance issue, it is a safe bet that nothing will be done following this latest episode.
If Chen is eventually charged and convicted, it will be a decisive victory for the KMT in its decade-long struggle to get even with him. This would also do untold damage to the image of the pro-localization movement.
It will further tarnish the DPP’s once respectable image, and the stain will take years, if not decades, to clear.
And yet all the promises of reform and talk of clean government will amount to nothing if, as in the past, the concern for this issue evaporates once the initial furor has died down and its usefulness for political gain has been expended.
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,
RSS