Although "flattering" certainly wouldn't be the best characterization of former president Lee Teng-hui's (
Fueling Lee's anger is alleged corruption within the DPP government, which, with 10 ministers arrested on graft charges in the past eight years, has reached a level unequaled by any other country, he says.
Deplorable though the situation is -- and Lee as well as every Taiwanese have every reason to be outraged -- it is not as isolated as it seems, nor has the DPP been any worse than many other governments in that regard.
In fact, the region as a whole, with perhaps China in the lead, has long been plagued by corrupt officials whose shenanigans have reached proportions undreamed of in Taiwan. Nor is that phenomenon limited to Asia, as the Enron scandal, which ran tentacles deep inside the White House, or the sponsorship case in Canada, which forced the Liberal Party out of power, have shown.
Greed and corruption, sadly, are part of human nature. Lee himself recognized this when he wrote in his memoirs The Road to Democracy: "Even in advanced industrial nations, [problems] derive, on the one hand, from people's uncontrolled desires and greed, and on the other, from their stubborn rejection of the constraints of society."
As such, unless we invent a way to fundamentally alter this darker side of humanity, greed will continue to thrive in our midst.
What matters is that systems of accountability are in place that deal with these robber barons. The fact that 10 ministers have been arrested in less than eight years is proof that the system, though imperfect, is working.
One reason why such numbers were not reported when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in power is that the party, with its authoritarian baggage, stood above accountability. And in light of how it has responded to requests that it return its stolen assets to the state, there is every reason to believe the KMT has retained that old reflex and would continue to do so should it regain power.
As with almost every democratic election in the modern world, voters in March will be handed the difficult task of choosing the lesser of two evils.
One, the DPP, is troubled by allegations of corruption, but it has made progress in its short time in power implementing a system of laws from which its own officials are not -- and should not be -- exempt.
The other, the KMT, is certainly no less corrupt, but it continues to show contempt and disregard for the law -- so much so, in fact, that it fetes as "national heroes" members in its ranks who have served jail time for criminal activity.
Sad though it is to see Lee use such language against a party whose raison d'etre it is to give Taiwan its proper place among the community of nations -- a goal, shared by Lee, that led to his ouster from the KMT -- his remarks were predictable encouragement for voters to support the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).
In an electoral campaign marked by an absence of constructive proposals, Lee seemed to be giving the TSU a campaign weapon to advertise itself not only as a viable option on the legislator-at-large ticket, but also as a party that can clean up corruption.
But the corrupt officials are members of the executive, not the legislature. Which leaves one question for Lee: Who should voters support in the presidential election?
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they