Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), now identified in prison by his personal identification number, 1020, might be looking at 17 years in jail, although it could be whittled down to just 11 years behind bars. There is also the slim possibility of a presidential pardon somewhere down the road by a future Democratic Progressive Party president, perhaps as early as 2012.
For now, contemplating his fate, Chen sits in a cell in Taoyuan and is settling into his jail routine. There’s roll call each day and he’ll have to answer the guards when they ask him his name and ID number. At least three times a week, there will be exercise outside in a guarded yard with fellow inmates, one surmises, and a good soak or shower in a prison washroom twice a week, too.
Other than that, he will be a prisoner of his own thoughts in his own cell, and there won’t be any glimpses of sunrises or sunsets. Food will come in through a metal slot in his cell three times a day. Good solid food, nutritious and designed to keep his weight steady and his health, well, healthy.
Chen’s 1.2 ping (3.96m2) cell will afford the former president time to read, write and think. Like a monk in a Buddhist monastery, Chen will have a lot of down time for deep, quiet contemplation, and he will undoubtedly spend most of his days writing his memoirs and penning commentaries and broadsides about politics and history.
There might be a book in a year published by his supporters and eventually there might be enough to fill an entire bookshelf.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) has said Chen’s imprisonment was a tragedy for him, his family and Taiwan’s democracy.
It is. However, the former president, from news reports and published photographs, seems calm and reflective behind bars, and since it appears he has nerves of steel and a strong, nimble mind, he will probably come out of jail more or less the same man he is today.
He will not be broken. He will grow in jail. He will blossom and sprout new wings. He will write his way out from the confining walls of his cell and fly free as a bird in the wind. His personality and his instincts will carry him through.
Perhaps the most embarrassing day — and moment — in Chen’s life was on Friday when he was transferred from the Taipei Detention Center to his new “home” in Taoyuan, where, like all incoming inmates, he had to go through a full-body search, completely naked.
Standing before several prison guards and officials, Chen was likely forced to stand up straight and bare himself to machines and men inside a walled-up fortress that is not the ship of state he once captained, but a mighty reminder that personal fortunes rise and fall just like the long ocean swells of the Pacific.
Naked, Chen knew he had hit rock bottom, but he also knows that he will be free one day, and that his life will go on, inexorably, towards the final curtain.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS