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.
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
There is a peculiar kind of political theater unfolding in East Asia — one that would be laughable if its consequences were not so dangerous. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) on April 12 returned from Beijing, where she met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and spoke earnestly about preserving “peace” and maintaining the “status quo.” It is a position that sounds responsible, even prudent. It is also a fiction. Taiwan is, by any honest definition, an independent country. It governs itself, defends itself, elects its leaders, and functions as a free and sovereign democracy. Independence is not a
RSS