A characteristic of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) carpetbaggers is their sense of privilege and entitlement and the belief that after gaining high positions via loyalty, they can in turn use such positions to reward carpetbagger friends.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) fits this carpetbagger profile. He has had no strong political background to justify his being mayor; however, his father, Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), came to Taiwan as a general under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
Hau Pei-tsun later served as premier, ran for vice president and was a key suspect in the Lafayette frigate scandal involving hundreds of millions of dollars of bribes, inflated prices and most likely murder. That supposedly made Hau Lung-bin, whose education was supported by the KMT, a good mayoral candidate.
Following this line of reasoning, many are not surprised at the cost overruns and extra expenditures involving Taipei city business projects. In turn, as Taipei is getting set to host the Taipei International Flora Expo, it is no surprise that scandals involving inflated prices and corruption are now surfacing. What is surprising, however, is the list of non sequiturs and absence of logic that Hau, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the KMT use to defend these scandals and overspending.
The expo scandal, along with the scandal over the Xinsheng Overpass, broke as Hau Lung-bin has been preparing to run for a second term as mayor. This brought the first non sequitur. Under these circumstances, Hau could not appear to take the blame, so three of his senior aides — Lee Yong-ping (李永萍), Chuang Wen-ssu (莊文思) and Ren Shiao-chi (任孝琦) — resigned. All well and good, but then Hau emphasized that these resignations had nothing to do with the scandals.
Say what? If the resignations had nothing to do with the scandals, why should they resign? Further, if they had nothing to do with the scandals, then who did? Who should resign? Hau?
The second non sequitur and lack of logic came from KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金浦聰).
King praised Hau for his “nimbleness” in handling the resignations and scandal.
Again, say what? If there is no justification for the resignations and if the guilty party for the scandals has not been named, what is the nimbleness involved? Has Hau, in true carpetbagger fashion, nimbly hoodwinked the public once more?
Ma followed with the third non sequitur. In his usual fashion, he laid the whole fault of the scandal and corruption at the feet of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Ma stated that the DPP should support the flora expo as it did the Kaohsiung World Games; to criticize the corruption “shames the country.”
For the third time, say what?
Supporting the expo does not mean the DPP or anyone should support corruption in the expo. Further, how does criticizing corruption bring shame to the country? Is not the aim of good government to eliminate corruption everywhere?
The usual KMT pundits twisted and turned on pan-blue television programs and entertained the public by giving all sorts of reasons in attempts to justify the inflated prices, corruption, cost overruns etc. No one, however, wanted to simply call a spade a spade.
Hau then summed it all up with the final non sequitur and smoke screen. In order to be totally fair and objective, Hau Lung-bin said he would have all the scandals and corruption investigated, not by the prosecutors whose job it is to do so, but by KMT stalwarts hand-picked by Hau himself. After all, if carpetbaggers are to be judged, they should be judged by other carpetbaggers as well.
That makes sense doesn’t it?
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.
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