With the issue of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) ill-gotten party assets having become the new center of attacks in the the DPP's election campaign, one cannot help but wonder what the KMT has been doing over the past several years regarding an issue that it knew perfectly well was bound to come up again.
The unfortunate answer is very little. In this regard, the KMT has no one to blame but itself for leaving itself vulnerable to attacks.
The immediate response of the party has been to criticize the DPP for bringing up the issue each time there is an election. But the DPP is able to do this precisely because it is a plain and indisputable fact that the issue remains far from being resolved -- that a good part of the assets of up to hundreds of billions of NT dollars, which went into the pockets of the party during the era of Chiang Kai-shek (
Moreover, would these attacks by the DPP or anyone else prompt such immediate reactions from the KMT if an election campaign weren't going on?
The last time that the KMT took these attacks seriously was the last presidential election.
This time around the response of the KMT has been to return seven movie theaters and two other buildings to the government. Returning these assets is of course the right thing to do. But why do it only when your enemy begins to attack you?
If the KMT continues to cough up bits and pieces of these assets each time it comes under attack, both the general public and the pan-green camp will continue to believe there are loads of assets that the KMT is still hiding.
The KMT must realize that this is a problem that can never be wished away.
It is true that, with so many assets in the KMT's hands, it will take more than a few days or weeks to solve the problem. But the KMT has had close to four years to take care of things.
As long as the problem still exists, no response the KMT can make will seem appropriate. It has tried to stay silent and not respond at all. That only made the party look more guilty than ever. This is not to mention the voter resentment that such behavior triggers. Whatever, explanations and reasons the KMT offers will sound to voters like sorry excuses.
The KMT must realize that these assets belong to the country and the people here. No one is trying to rob the KMT of anything.
Moreover, since the people are the rightful owners of these assets, they are the judge of whether the KMT has done enough. If the KMT wishes to survive as a political party and even someday be elected as the ruling party again, it must deal with this political issue.
To make the matter worse, a bill that would mandate the return of ill-gotten assets of political parties, and which would give the government a legal basis to investigate such matters, remains buried in the huge to-do pile at the Legislative Yuan, where the pan-blue camp holds a majority.
It goes without saying how that makes the KMT look.
These party assets are not assets at all. They are burdens to the KMT. Virtually no other political party in any democratic country has the kind of wealth that the KMT has.
It must make a clean break with the past, and return these ill-gotten assets, so as to start again with a clean slate.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS