After a number of scandals involving politician's exotic sex lives, a plain old case of bribery seems prosaic. But the alleged collective acceptance of bribes by members of the fourth Legislative Yuan just days before it becomes history is actually the most shocking and certainly the most dangerous. DPP legislators Yeh Yi-jin (
The claims revolve around an amendment under review to the Electronic Game Regulation Law (
Being a whistleblower is not easy and these lawmakers deserve our approbation. They face factional pressure and personal attacks, but they have still stepped up to expose the illegal conduct of their colleagues. Their actions show a moral courage that we were beginning to think was wholly absent from what is probably one of the most venal lawmaking bodies in history.
As everyone knows, many elected representatives and officials at all levels are deeply involved with business conglomerates and the mafia. This is one of the reasons Taiwan is often criticized for its so-called "black-gold politics." The change of ruling party has not in and of itself been sufficient to make this corruption disappear. Exposing corruption is only the start of the process to eradicate it. What it needs is the application of both determination and resources on the government's part.
Previously, during the uproar over the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, allegations of accepting bribes have been hurled at a number of lawmakers and government officials. Investigating this alleged corruption, which took place several years ago under the notoriously corrupt KMT regime, is perhaps now impossible. But getting to the bottom of this latest bribery scandal should be well within the capacities of the Ministry of Justice. Effort and determination are needed to show that the day when large-scale bribery could escape criminal investigation and prosecution are past. The crony capitalist corruption that bloomed under the KMT has weakened Taiwan both economically and politically. It is time to show that it can be stamped out. Both those offering and those taking bribes need to be investigated, exposed and prosecuted with the utmost rigor and punished to the limit the law allows.
Voters will of course become even more aware of the need for reform of Taiwan's political system. Everyone realizes the difficulties of legislative reform. However, this is a necessary step for deepening Taiwan's democracy. Only through large-scale restructuring of Taiwan's lawmaking body can the professionalism, good faith, and moral character of legislators replace black-gold politics and salvage the rock-bottom image of Taiwan's representative institutions. Hopefully the collapse of the large majority held in the legislature by the opposition alliance -- which has worked hard to block measures that would make Taiwan's political system less corrupt (readers can guess why) -- in the Dec. 1 elections means that genuine reform might now be possible and the corrupt purged from Taiwan's political life.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS