The detention of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday on charges related to embezzlement of his “state affairs” fund and money laundering by the former first family is a landmark in Taiwan’s history — and a depressing one — because he became the first former president in the nation’s history to be incarcerated.
The circumstances of his detention, however, are controversial.
In applying for his detention, prosecutors have effectively said to judges that they have gathered enough evidence to charge Chen — evidence that presumably cannot be tampered with.
If, as prosecutors claim, they are worried about Chen colluding with potential co-defendants and destroying evidence, then it would have made more sense to detain him weeks ago rather than after all the potential leads prosecutors were following had been leaked to the media.
Handcuffing Chen was a strictly symbolic and possibly foolish move by the authorities. Chen knew the value of this symbolism when he raised his manacled hands above his head on his way to the courthouse.
Whether the former president’s arrest will lead to more protests against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and the judiciary — which some are accusing of political persecution — is hard to foresee, because since the allegations of corruption against him surfaced, Chen has had a polarizing effect on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), for which he had long been the standard bearer.
Nevertheless, it will be surprising if the string of arrests of current and former DPP government officials over the last few months fails to create some kind of reaction from opposition supporters.
When violence broke out during last week’s visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), many people expressed concern that it had harmed the nation’s image abroad.
But already many people and organizations, including some abroad, are beginning to express concern about these detentions and what they see as a disturbing pattern in the judiciary. If these concerns turn out to be valid, the repercussions could prove a lot more damaging to the nation’s international profile.
Chen’s detention could increase anxiety that Taiwan’s reputation as a country governed by the rule of law is being eroded, which could lessen international support and leave the government even more unpopular and isolated.
There have been mutterings that Taiwan is heading the way of Singapore. But while Singaporeans may be content with a ruling party that uses the judiciary to stifle opposition, Taiwan’s situation is altogether different. Singapore does not suffer an external threat to its democracy and survival as a country.
Taiwanese are not stupid. If they view the recent actions of the judiciary to be a threat to the rule of law and the democracy they fought so hard to obtain, they will use their ballots at the next election to boot out those responsible.
But if their concerns continue to be met with aloof regard by the authorities and antagonistic, sneering language by KMT legislators, then action could be swifter still.
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