Taiwan's Discontent, a Sign of Hope for Taiwan & Even China, Democracy Part I
Saturday December 02, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
Now is the winter of Taiwan's discontent. Its discontent abounds. It is a discontent with an inherited system of corruption and hypocrisy, a discontent with posturing politicians who talk too much but accomplish too little for the good of the nation, a discontent not only internal but even external with the nations of the world that claim to support Taiwan's democracy but refuse to grant that democracy its proper participation in the world. Nevertheless, as Taiwan confronts and becomes conscious of the roots of its discontent, that very awareness can point in the direction of hope, a hope not only for Taiwan, but for the cause of democracy and even for China.
The most recent and beneficial revelation in that discontent has been the exposure of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the same act that he wanted to hang Chen Shui-bian for. That the spotlight of hypocrisy has been able to shine on and expose this alleged cleanest of the clean in all of his Madison Avenue crafted image is actually a sign of hope for this nation.
For Taiwan's public, which for the past months has had to endure the self-righteous palaver and insipid accusations of Ma's pan-blue lackeys, it is a time of blissful silence. The many hypocrites that pledged to leave no stone unturned in trying to dig up rubbish to pin on Chen Shui-bian are now scrambling for rocks to crawl under.
Bought Loyalties: A Lesson in Corruption
All that glitters is not gold. Ma Ying-jeou's exposure has been much more than just a politician caught in suspected illegal activities; it is the revelatory exposure of the long standing practices and system brought to Taiwan by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It is a system that has provided slush funds for officials (be they blue or now green) to dip into. It is a system of reward and corruption that Ma himself participated in back when he pursued a KMT sponsored graduate degree and thus had his work as a campus spy rewarded with subsequent prominent appointments.
In their Ahab-like desire to dig up something to discredit Chen Shui-bian the pan-blues did indeed open a larger Pandora's Box than they expected.
Investigations are revealing how Ma used much of his special funds to reward his staff, not so much for performance but more for loyalty. There is nothing wrong per se in rewarding loyalty, but doing it with public funds is illegal and indicates a desire to return to the days of the one-party state of the KMT. In that past State, loyalty was bought with numerous forms of state reward, loyalty that could not be bought was imprisoned and even murdered.
With bought loyalties in the city as the order of the day, the ordinary citizen must ask who got these rewards, what each had to do, and how well did they perform? With all the payments for alleged performance at city hall, no one has still explained how a dead body could remain on a city hall balcony for six months and not be discovered. Perhaps loyalty does not include carting dead bodies away. It would be a further supreme irony if Yu Wen (the fall guy whose misuse of receipts went on for 882 days) turned out to be one of those employees rewarded by Ma for "good performance."
So busy has the pan-blue machine been in cranking up its damage control engines that silence indeed does reign in Taiwan. Gone are Shih Ming-deh's crazed Red Shirts. Gone is the March of One Million (aka 360,000). Gone are all the blathering sanctimonious hypocrites. Gone even are the sunshine reformers. All are lost in the spotlight of hypocrisy where not only Ma has been revealed to have a personal slush fund, but that slush funds are part and parcel of many government offices and perks enjoyed even by the do-nothing pan-blue dominated Legislative Yuan. As this beginning transparency exposes the past, the public are beginning to realize the extent to which they have been bamboozled by the system and for how long.
This is just the tip of the iceberg; for full exposure the people must now thoroughly scrutinize the past. The abuses that have recently become evident in the green wood of a fledgling democracy with transparency all stem from that past. It does not take any stretch of the imagination to realize the perks, exploitation, and corruption that went on for over half a century in Taiwan in the dry wood of the KMT's one-party state where all media and presses were rigidly controlled.
Questions that need to be asked as dogs learn from wolves
Some of the pan-blues claim that the revelations about Ma have been made to distract from the accusations against Chen. This is not distraction; this is the beginning of applying justice across the board; it is an examination long in coming. More questions need to be asked and more details must be pursued. Corruption has now crossed party lines. Like dogs learning from wolves, several in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have learned how to indulge in this inherited system to their advantage. Such dogs should be punished but not by excusing the wolves that taught them.
One of the most obvious who ran with the wolves from the past is James Soong, a man who now wants to be Taipei Mayor. Citizens need simply ask how this man could have supported himself in style for eight years without having a job. Where does he now get the war chest to finance his campaign run for Taipei mayor? Just do the math. What fortunes must he have salted away in his years as Provincial Governor? What houses does he still own in the United States?
Questions must be asked of others and certainly of Shih Ming-deh if he wishes to pose as a grandstanding reformer. Shih has run with the blue wolves after leaving the DPP, now he runs with the red ones from across the Strait. Shih has been out of a job for six years. When he left the Legislative Yuan, he declared himself in debt, yet within a year he bought a home for over NT$ six million with funds that were mysteriously channeled to him through his nephew's bank account.
True, Shih's current slush fund of over NT$ 100 million was not drawn from public money but its nebulous receipt-less sources point primarily to the tycoon Chen Yu-hao, a self-proclaimed hater of Chen Shui-bian who remains a fugitive of justice currying favor with Red China.
Jerry Fan, Shih's spokesperson claims that NT$65 million has already been spent and at least NT$30 million on advertising. Do the receipts show that it was spent with the advertising company that Fan owns? And what of the remaining NT$ 50 million dollars or so, how fast will that disappear into the thin air surrounding the forgetful simple-minded souls ignorant of the past. For Shih, the self-acclaimed man against corruption, who now enjoys the beaches of Thailand, accountability remains in order. No more verbiage or grandstanding please, just let clear, concrete receipts do the talking.
Yes Ma's exposure is more than just about him; it has exposed an age old system of inherited corruption and the culpability of many who profited from the past. This is no time for sunshine reformers. Accountability is in order for all. If any are truly serious about rooting out corruption in Taiwan let them then go to the roots. It is a time to punish the dogs and kill the wolves.
Now is the time to examine all who have profited from the past. Now more than ever is the perfect time to set straight the matters of transitional justice where Taiwan's blood cries out from the past. Now more than ever is it time to settle the matter of stolen state assets, whose reform bill the pan-blue dominated Legislative Yuan continues to block.
This is the winter of Taiwan's discontent, but this discontent can portend hope if Taiwan is up to the task of full justice.
Taiwan needs a cleansing wind, a wind that will sweep indiscriminately from the past through the present. It needs a West Wind like that Shelley wrote of. If it finds this wind, then it will also enjoy Shelley's prophetic words.
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?