Yesterday, the Legislative Yuan finally passed the long-awaited Law Governing Political Donations (
In the absence of a political donation law, making political campaign donations is legal, unless the politician receiving the money promises to do and in fact does something illegal in return -- which would constitute bribery.
Judging from how badly Chen Yu-hao has fared in the four years since President Chen Shui-bian (
Under the circumstances, it is truly puzzling that it seems to matter whether Chen Yu-hao ever visited Wu in her home and whether she in fact gave him a tour of her bathroom.
It is no more relevant than what you or I had for dinner last night.
This entire charade has turned into a math contest between Chen Yu-hao and Wu. If Chen Yu-hao indeed visited Wu, it proves nothing more than that Wu is a forgetful person, that she spoke too quickly or that she did not tell the truth about something that has no real relevance.
Sheng was absolutely right in saying during yesterday's press conference that this election campaign's focus has gotten blurred and has been sidetracked by trivial matters. Sadly, far too many social resources and too much time have been wasted on this fiasco.
One reason for this was the absence of a political donation law, which would have given more concrete guidelines to the public about what kinds of donations are legal and which are illegal. Without it, many people have been inclined to associate the acceptance of political donations with wrongdoing and corruption.
Under the newly enacted political donations law, each candidate can accept political donations only within a certain period of time before the election -- a year for presidential candidates and 10 months for legislative candidates.
This will reduce the likelihood of bribery disguised as political donations.
Moreover, the new law sets a cap on donations -- NT$300,000 from an individual, NT$2 million from a private group and NT$3 million from a business enterprise -- which should serve to limit undue influence from any particular donor.
Moreover, any individual candidate or political party seeking campaign donations must open a special account designated for the purpose and also file reports with relevant government entities. The purpose of this requirement is to establish transparency for giving and accepting donations.
If anything good has come out of the farce involving Chen Yu-hao, it is the public pressure that has resulted in the passage of the political donations law.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs