Readers of yesterday's newspaper may have seen two separate stories with an interesting, though unremarked upon link. In one, former president Lee Teng-hui (
The link between these stories lies in the history of the Bamboo Union. The gang was formed in the mid-1950s in Yonghe by the disaffected kids of Mainlander parents who banded together to stop themselves getting beaten up by Hoklo hooligans. Perhaps because so many of its members came from military families, the gang was far better organized and more prepared to use violence than its Hoklo rivals, and had soon used its muscle to become a major force in Taipei.
The gang prospered in an atmosphere where the authorities were far more concerned with political dissidence than with basic law and order issues, but it was in 1980 that the Bamboo Union really made it to the big time. In the late 1970s, the democracy movement and tangwai activism, as exemplified by the Chungli incident in 1977 and the Kaohsiung Incident two years later, had been getting more and more vigorous. In the wake of the Kaohsiung Incident, high-ranking Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials met with Chen Chi-li (
It was a typical "white glove" operation. The government realized it was getting an ugly reputation through its repressive tactics, and so gave the Bamboo Union a degree of impunity in return for being able to use the gang's muscle against the democracy movement. The most notorious result of this was the slaying of the writer Henry Liu (
As Taiwan started to democratize, gang connections became useful to the KMT in a different way. The KMT decided that as it actually had to fight elections, then it might as well load the dice in its favor. So it relied on its gang connections -- indeed still does -- to buy votes. The problem was that the party also had to be seen by the public as doing something about crime and public order. As a result it had the interesting technique of using the gangs when it wanted, and throwing some high level mem-bers in jail when it needed to buff up its law and order credentials.
The gangsters soon learned that rather than simply enjoying the KMT's mercurial protection, they could enjoy more protection by entering politics themselves and availing themselves of the constitutional protection from arrest elected officials enjoyed.
And so we end up with a legislature dominated by a party extensively connected to racketeers, many of whose legislators are racketeers themselves. This should not be a surprise. Corruption and violence have always been the KMT's stock in trade.
If Taiwan had anything like the US' Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, being a member of the KMT could be made a criminal offense. The government would shy away from this because it would face criticism abroad for "anti-democratic" behavior. But the KMT is not a political party as these are generally understood elsewhere; rather it is, as it has always been, an organized crime syndicate masquerading as a political party. And as such there are very real questions about whether, once it looses control of the legislature and some hard-hitting laws can be put on the books, it should be allowed to exist at all.
Elbridge Colby, America’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, is the most influential voice on defense strategy in the Second Trump Administration. For insight into his thinking, one could do no better than read his thoughts on the defense of Taiwan which he gathered in a book he wrote in 2021. The Strategy of Denial, is his contemplation of China’s rising hegemony in Asia and on how to deter China from invading Taiwan. Allowing China to absorb Taiwan, he wrote, would open the entire Indo-Pacific region to Chinese preeminence and result in a power transition that would place America’s prosperity
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
All 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), formerly of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), survived recall elections against them on Saturday, in a massive loss to the unprecedented mass recall movement, as well as to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that backed it. The outcome has surprised many, as most analysts expected that at least a few legislators would be ousted. Over the past few months, dedicated and passionate civic groups gathered more than 1 million signatures to recall KMT lawmakers, an extraordinary achievement that many believed would be enough to remove at
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
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