What is it that's preventing your reporters from giving us a deeper story on Gary Wang (王令麟), the KMT legislator and head of Eastern Multimedia (東森多媒體), who is being held on suspicion of rigging a land deal? This is surely the political/corruption case to beat them all and will define the near-term future of politics and business in Taiwan if it is pushed to its logical conclusion.
Wang is much more than a three-term legislator and head of one of the island's biggest cable TV companies. What is not mentioned in your reports is, perhaps most importantly, that he is the son of Wang You-tseng (王又曾), patriarch of the Rebar Group (力霸集團) of companies and a member of the KMT central standing committee. The senior Wang is about as high as you can go in the KMT's business/political hierarchy and, until the May 31 election, was widely acknowledged as being more powerful than a Cabinet minister, or perhaps even the premier.
Who can forget the image a few years ago of he and Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), the KMT's other grandaddy of industry, being asked to shake hands in front of the cameras to resolve the latest skirmish in Taiwan's perennial cable TV war by the party's secretary-general, after the GIO Director General had surrendered any pretense about who really ran the government.
More to the point, under the previous government it would have been unthinkable for prosecutors to go after Wang's son. That they now feel emboldened by the new president's desire to clean up corruption in Taiwan is hardly surprising, however. What is going to be really interesting to see is whether they are able to take this one all the way.
When President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was touring Taiwan's diplomatic allies recently, anyone who recalls that famous scene from the cable TV war could not have failed to notice the gray-haired business tycoon following close on the president's heels.
Anthony Lawrance
Taipei, Taiwan
Real victims of the drug war
The article "Europe losing war on drugs, US agency warns" (Sept. 7, page 9) might almost have been amusing, were it not for the millions of people whose lives have been ruined -- not by drugs themselves, but by the costly, futile, and ultimately destructive attempts of most governments to prevent the sale and use of certain mind-altering substances.
The article consisted mostly of hyperbolic quotes from a report by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the USA, a country which now boasts the highest percentage of jailed citizens in the world.
Over half of these inmates are non-violent drug offenders. Normal, hardworking, "respectable" folks who just happened to get caught with a bag of weed.
A college student with a promising future (who also enjoys getting high once in a while) now finds himself in jail, his family bankrupted by the legal fees spent trying to keep him free.
A mother is jailed because she borrows a friend's car, not knowing there's a "stash" in the glove compartment. Her children become wards of the state and are sent to a foster home.
An AIDS patient uses medical marijuana to fight the nausea induced by the "cocktail" of drugs prescribed by his doctors (if you can't keep the medicine "down" long enough to absorb it, it does no good). The DEA prosecutes him and he dies in his sleep, choking on vomit.
A child is condemned to life in a wheelchair because she is caught in the crossfire of a "turf" war between rival drug-dealing gangs -- gangs which would not even be involved with the drug trade if it were legal and well regulated.
A woman is raped because her attacker had to be paroled early, in order to make room in an over-stuffed prison for the aforementioned college student.
These are the real victims of the "War On Drugs."
Meanwhile, the thugs and kingpins who actually make money on the illegal drug trade laugh at our stupidity. They don't want drugs to be legalized, because then their huge profits would dry up and they'd have to actually work for a living -- perhaps growing coffee beans instead of coca.
It would be nice to see this hardline viewpoint balance out with an article representing the fast-growing segment of the population who believe legalization, regulation, and education are the most effective strategies for curbing the ills associated with drug abuse.
I respectfully suggest the following Web sites for further study of this critically important issue:
John Diedrichs
Taipei, Taiwan
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
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During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
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