Mon, Aug 30, 2010 page8

• [ LETTER ]

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  Who controls whom?

  It would surely come as some relief to Robin Winkler to know that he is safely mistaken in his diagnosis of what ails Taiwan (“Who speaks for the rule of law?” Aug, 28, p 8).

  Winkler’s chastisement of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for undermining “the rule of law” is at best a superficial analysis and perhaps even a dishonest one.

  The facts to support his argument may be clear to see, but, by framing them in the context of “the rule of law” he diffracts the light away from the true nature of what is happening — this is not simply the behavior of a “rough” executive, Taiwan is quite literally being invaded.

  First, there was not, is not, nor can there ever be, a single example of when Winkler’s so-called “rule of law” does not devolve to, or in the more salient cases degrade to, the rule of men.

  For sure, there are ample questions as to the degree to which that may occur, but the relevant point is that Winkler’s “rule of law” has always been little more than a rhetorical flourish promoted by popular ignorance of the status of what he calls a “fundamental value of Western society.”

  It is not and nor does it make any sense to think of it as such. The obvious question to put to him would be why the overall design of the legal architecture in the US, which he refers to with such mendacious phrasing, was designed in the way it was in the first place?

  The answer to that question is that the US legal system was designed with the specific intent of limiting the powers of government and protecting the freedom of the individual.

  This idea was, is and always will be anathema to Chinese (and not only Chinese) conceptions of society.

  The failure of democratic government in Taiwan to prevent the degradation of the “rule of law” into this sinister “rule of party” is neither unique, nor should it really be a surprise. In fact, the US itself furnishes any honest student with plenty of examples of this trend, both historical and current.

  The warping of democratic government in Taiwan may have been exacerbated by the pre-existing organizational power of the KMT, but even that itself can be fully explained by an initial design flaw — a central, unified legal architecture that concentrates political power under a ­territorial monopoly rather than diffuses power as far as possible toward the individual.

  The last time Taiwan was plunged from the beginnings of Western enlightenment into the barbarity of two centuries of Chinese darkness came about as the result of the sudden invasion of Chinese power represented by the forces of Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功) back in 1661.

  Today, the weapons of combat are different — legal provisions for land theft instead of warships and so on — but the nature of what is happening is similar.

  Perhaps a better concept for understanding Taiwan’s current problems comes from the rather unlikely source of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his famous formula: “who, whom?”

  MICHAEL FAGAN

  Tainan
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