KMT presidential candidate Lien Chan seems to have broken his "do-nothing" image with his bold promise of a reform policy never before seen in Taiwan's history, namely to put the KMT's assets into a trust.
On the positive side, Lien's promise, if delivered, will shine an unprecedented amount of light on the murky background of the century-old KMT.
Neither Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) nor Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), for all their reformist credentials, ever talked of putting party assets in a trust. Lien deserves applause for making such a promise even before consensus has been reached at the KMT's National Congress. But the person most likely to benefit from Lien's move is James Soong (宋楚瑜) since the spotlight has now been lifted from his financial scandal to the KMT's own possibly ill-gotten booty, the exact size of which is supposed to be somewhere between NT$200 billion and NT$500 billion.
If Lien made his pledge to boost his own election chances, we have to wonder if he did the right thing as his announcement refocussed attention from Soong, onto his own party and of course onto himself as a scion of one of Taiwan's wealthier families.
Lien's announcement has also drawn cynical sneers from opposition parties, especially the DPP. And this is hardly unjustified. The KMT's enormous wealth has been one of the key factors in its lengthy rule. In fact, to define the assets actually contained in its deep-rooted, complicated business network may be a far more difficult job than to define the KMT itself. Also, the KMT has been smart enough to start, quite some time ago, diversifying ownership of its businesses through privatization and mutual reinvestment.
The purpose of all these moves is to obscure the meaning of "party assets," and to allow Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) to say with such confidence that the China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB, 中華開發工業銀行) is not a KMT-run business because the party only owns 5 percent of the bank's shares. However, everything about the bank, from personnel to policymaking, is closely knitted with the KMT. That is why there has been so much cynicism about media reports that Lien's first vehicle for entrustment may be the CDIB. Does putting the money from your left pocket into your right pocket really qualify as "reform"?
Also, even for reform of this kind, the passage of relevant laws to effect this change will take some years. Not surprisingly, this has caused many to worry that Lien's statement of intent will meet the fate of the grandiose but never implemented strategies of the National Development Conference back in December 1996.
The move is sure to face vehement opposition from businesses which have long been "investing" in the KMT, as well as stock market speculators who stand to lose most of their insider information from their KMT connections.
In the eyes of these people, Lien has, in fact, put himself in a bad light.
Still, no matter how feeble the move may be, it is pain that the KMT must endure to get rid of "black gold" politics and transform itself into a credible and responsible ruling party for the long term. If the KMT's reforms can reach this level, then the party may be able to build a sense of trust in the hearts of the Taiwanese people.
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