The greed and rottenness represented by the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets is much worse than the alleged corruption among President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) family members and senior aides. If pan-blue supporters can accept the KMT's approach to the issue, they should also see Chen as a very clean president. Instead, they dress in red and use selective ethical standards in an attempt to force Chen to step down. It is obvious that their anti-corruption stance is fake, and that they have ulterior motives.
Some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leaders, however, also take a selective approach. Pan-green supporters did not vote for a president merely because they thought he would be capable of pursuing conventional Western democracy. They wanted someone to fulfill three great missions -- realize Taiwanese independence and sovereignty, clean up after 50 years of KMT corruption and bring Taiwan historical justice.
Over these six years, Chen has turned his back on almost every one of his ideals and moral standards. Pan-green supporters thus have the moral right to ask Chen to resign for ignoring and even betraying his beliefs and principles. Some DPP leaders also seem to have forgotten these ideals and mislead their supporters into applying conventional Western democratic standards to allow Chen to continue to rule Taiwan based on legal standards of low morality.
When Chen came to power, he pledged not to declare independence, change the national title, enshrine the "state-to-state" model in the Constitution or hold a referendum on independence. He also initiated the "active opening" policy, thereby allowing Beijing to put pressure on the government by providing business incentives to Taiwanese businessmen in China.
In the end, it is pro-green workers, farmers and the salaried classes who have suffered most from Chen's China policies. Restrained by the "four noes" framework, Chen has talked about Taiwan independence without doing anything.
Chen is clearly the person who has benefitted most from talk about Taiwanese sovereignty, but in the end, he simply said: "It is impossible." But when his leadership was threatened by corruption scandals, Chen hurriedly appealed for cross-strait talks and he also limited Taiwan's sovereignty by reiterating the "four noes" pledge to the US.
After six years, Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) has still not received justice for the murders of his mother and two daughters and nothing new has come to light in the death of professor Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成). The Lafayette frigate kick-back scandal is only now being discussed, and the issue of the KMT's assets has come to the fore only since Chen's leadership crisis. He has proceeded sluggishly, and even retreated, on the three great missions. This cannot be explained away by saying that the opposition holds a legislative majority.
The bizarre thing is that when the fraudulent anti-corruption campaign led by former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (
When the confrontation has abated somewhat, those who support Taiwanese sovereignty and independence should take a step back: What is more important -- Taiwan's three great missions, establishing a tradition of pan-green honesty towards Taiwan, or Chen?
Lin Chia is an independent economics commentator.
Translated by Daniel Cheng and Marc Langer
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