Solving the problem of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) return of assets to the people of Taiwan should be simple. You take it -- you give it back. But nothing involving the KMT is simple. Arrogance stands in the way of just about any solution. The KMT assumes the arrogance of power lost, of righteous indignation, of paternalism and of greed. Taiwan is a nation of laws, and no one, no person or party, including the KMT, is above the law.
As a way of enticing voters in the 2000 presidential election, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
After fleeing to Taiwan from China, the KMT appropriated local assets. In the minds of the party's leadership, the KMT and the "Republic of China (ROC)" were, and unfortunately continue to be, one and the same. The property of one was naturally considered property of the other. The KMT acquired media organizations to consolidate its rule; it acquired real estate, businesses and other assets to accumulate wealth and power. Fifty years later, untold billions of dollars of assets which rightfully belong to the people of Taiwan remain in the possession of the KMT. But the KMT is not the same as Taiwan, nor the "ROC." It is merely a political party.
How then to rectify the true ownership of these assets, given the change in the status of the KMT from a dictatorship to a political party, the nation having come from dictatorship to democracy? Like untying a troublesome knot, the process of disentangling the KMT from Taiwan has not been easy. Divestiture has begun to help remove KMT influence from the media, government and the private sector, but much remains to be done.
In other countries, when an autocratic regime collapses, the property it looted from the country is returned to the people. Its leaders are made to give up their ill-gotten gains. The same has to occur here. Having plundered the public coffers to invest, re-invest, transfer, exchange and otherwise launder such assets, the KMT must disgorge those assets found to be the rightful belongings of the Taiwanese people.
There must be no constitutional impediment to a commission examining KMT assets, nor to court proceedings determining which assets should be returned. The laundering of assets determined to have been stolen from the Taiwanese people should be investigated. As for those assets which can't be recovered, the KMT should reimburse the nation.
Nothing less will serve the people of Taiwan, and nothing less will serve justice and democracy.
Lee Long-hwa
United States
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