Sat, Jan 24, 2009 page3

• INTERVIEW: Ma’s election much more than a rotation of power

  Worried that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would seize total control of all media outlets after becoming the most powerful political party in the country, former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng started broadcasting shows on Happy Radio on Jan. 1. The Taipei Times spoke with him about his plans to change politics

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  Taipei Times: You were an economics professor before, and have become a professor again after serving in various government positions — so why would you be interested in producing radio shows?

  Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟): I got the chance to meet the owner of Happy Radio, Huang (黃), through [Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tainan City Councilor] Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), and was told that he was considering leasing out his station to KMT lawmakers. I thought it was an obvious move by the KMT to gain control of the media after gaining control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, and I quickly told Huang that I would rent the station instead.

  So, after returning from the US, I talked with Huang. At first he wanted to rent his radio station for NT$6.5 million [US$198,000] a month, which was way above what we could afford. After some more talks, he agreed to give us five hours a day for NT$2 million.

  

  Chen Shih-meng, former Presidential Office secretary-general, speaks with the Taipei Times on Dec. 26.

  PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

  TT: Where will the money come from? With the recession, how do you plan to run the station?

  Chen: Yes, the economy is bad, but when we first made our plan in September, the recession wasn’t as bad.

  But we’ve already made up our mind — we knew full well that this would not be a profitable investment and we calculated that we could afford more than NT$30 million a month in costs. We expect a loss of NT$3 million to NT$4 million a year for the first two years.

  After we had the plan, we started talking to some of our friends. We had a goal of obtaining NT$50 million, and we’ve already received NT$25 million. It wasn’t easy to get this much money in just a month-and-a-half.

  Other than the NT$2 million a month in rent, we have to pay for salaries, equipment and other stuff. Right now, we have NT$700,000 from commercials, but the burden is still quite heavy.

  Thus we can’t really afford to hire too many people, but we have a lot of volunteers.

  TT: What will be the objective of your radio programs?

  Chen: We should understand what is on the minds of those who did not vote for [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on March 22, and stay connected with these people.

  I am one of those people, I’ve been frustrated since March and wanted to do something for Taiwan, but I didn’t know how. In elections in the past, [DPP] candidates would invite us Mainlanders to endorse them, but the campaign headquarters did not get in touch with me before the [presidential] election this time. We had to ask to be on the stage ourselves, and we got just five minutes. That didn’t feel good and I believe voters had some thoughts on that as well.

  There is probably a need for a new motivation for the people to get rid of this feeling of being pushed back, and we actually appreciate the contribution they made a lot.

  There was a Mr Chen who brought NT$50,000 to us for donation. Why did he do that?

  I’d received a letter from another Mr Chen who was a retired post office employee who enclosed NT$2,000 in his letter. He said that he wasn’t a public servant, and did not benefit from the 18 percent public-servant special interest rate, so he could only afford NT$2,000, and asked us to “forgive” him.

  I read the letter to the public and stressed that this is the kind of support — regardless of the amount — that gives us encouragement. His brother heard [it on the radio] and brought NT$50,000 today. I think there are a lot of people like him in society. They know that we’re not rich so they support us. Hence, we know that we’ll lose some money, but we won’t lose everything.

  TT: Are you [taking the donations from the public to] show the neutrality of the station?

  Chen: Yes, we’re impartial, but we’re impartial in terms of not getting involved in factions within a party, not being impartial between the green and the blue political camps. Some people advised us not to call ourselves the luse douzhen [綠色鬥陣, “the Green Front”], because the name was too partisan and could prevent us from making more money. But I said this was what we are: I don’t like to be ambiguous.

  TT: How do you feel about the recent setbacks and challenges to certain democratic values and systems and the seeming return to 20 years ago when Taiwan first began its democratic reform?

  Chen: If you look at it from a certain angle, you see this is an understandable, if not natural development. When I was an activist for democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s — that is, under the governments of [former presidents] Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — the KMT was actually willing to transform from an authoritarian government.

  I’m not sure if they really wanted to change, were forced to do so because of changes in the environment, or both. You know, the KMT government was under tremendous international pressure — the US broke diplomatic ties with us, the Kaohsiung Incident case — these all created tremendous pressure on the Chiangs and the KMT.

  So I think they intentionally turned a blind eye to the democratic movement, the founding of an opposition party and the retirement of old deputies in the National Assembly.

  If the KMT had wanted to keep tight control of everything, the democratic movement wouldn’t have achieved as much.

  But at the moment, after becoming a new democracy, we should call what Ma’s government is doing a “restoration.” The political environment is good for them — Ma was popularly elected and won power from the DPP, so his government is more “justified” than the old Chiang regimes … On the other hand, China’s attitude towards Taiwan — compared with the old days — is less tense. All these outside factors could make Ma feel that he has nothing to worry about.

  Facing a president like Ma, I think the DPP should redefine Ma’s government. Don’t think of Ma’s ascent to power as a rotation of power, like in other democratic countries. The DPP should think of it as a reversal of democratization, as [US political scientist Samuel] Huntington said. This reverse wave may very well turn a new democracy into an authoritarian country. Huntington has predicted it, and that’s what Taiwan is like right now.
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