In a bid to show just how squeaky clean he is — as opposed to the “dirty” former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and, by association, the “corrupt” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) unveiled the latest brainchild of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led government: the Agency Against Corruption (AAC).
This is a rich twist to Taiwanese politics, given that the KMT is one of the most corrupt political parties ever to exist. It is a little bit like the Cosa Nostra in Sicily forming its own bureau to make sure nobody breaks the law.
Ma does not want to give up on a winning strategy. After all, juxtaposing his clean-cut, good-guy image against Chen’s money-grubbing ways was one of the myths that Ma and the KMT created to get into the Presidential Office in 2008.
It is a good thing that the Taiwanese government has a body dedicated to rooting out corruption amongst civil servants, but are the head of the KMT and his subordinates going to be able to restrain themselves from using the AAC to attack their political opponents? If their past three years in power show us anything, the answer is “not likely.”
In all likelihood, the AAC will become the AADPPC, or the Agency Against DPP Corruption, especially in the lead-up to January’s presidential election. Although Ma said at the AAC’s inauguration that adequate evidence proving corruption must be shown before it can bring a case, this is not very hard to do given the murky rules surrounding the use of the special budgets for any elected official and a cultural attitude of cutting corners in Taiwanese government circles — for example, using any old receipt to claim expenses, something even Ma has been implicated in.
In a thinly veiled threat, Ma said that coming under investigation would severely damage the reputation of a civil servant and make his or her spouse afraid to go to work and their children afraid to go to school. This amounts to communal punishment, and it can easily be meted out to those who disagree with the president politically.
Let’s look at what has happened in the lead-up to the presidential election: Just before the end of the DPP’s primary, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP) announced that it was investigating the disappearance of thousands of documents during the former president’s administration, saying that it could possibly indict former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), then in the running for the DPP presidential nomination. Then, just as DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was to unveil her campaign office, the SIP indicted former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) on charges of embezzling state funds and money laundering, conveniently just after Lee said that Ma must be voted out of office.
Just how determined is the Ma government to stamp out corruption? Recent moves regarding the rampant and ongoing practice of vote buying are telling. From December 2008 to May last year, 26 local officials belonging to the KMT were indicted around the nation for vote buying. How did the government reward Hsin Tai-chao (邢泰釗), the chief prosecutor at the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, who is credited with being Taiwan’s leading prosecutor against the practice of vote buying? He was transferred to Kinmen Island. That shows real determination.
Now, Ma unveils a government body whose entire purpose is to investigate and indict corrupt officials. With his government’s track record, you can expect to see a whole list of officials connected with the DPP indicted on dubious grounds in the next few months.
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
After declaring Iran’s military “gone,” US President Donald Trump appealed to the UK, France, Japan and South Korea — as well as China, Iran’s strategic partner — to send minesweepers and naval forces to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When allies balked, the request turned into a warning: NATO would face “a very bad” future if it refused. The prevailing wisdom is that Trump faces a credibility problem: having spent years insulting allies, he finds they would not rally when he needs them. That is true, but superficial, as though a structural collapse could be caused by wounded feelings. Something
Former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founding chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday, making headlines across major media. However, another case linked to the TPP — the indictment of Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) for alleged violations of the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) on Tuesday — has also stirred up heated discussions. Born in Shanghai, Xu became a resident of Taiwan through marriage in 1993. Currently the director of the Taiwan New Immigrant Development Association, she was elected to serve as legislator-at-large for the TPP in 2023, but was later charged with involvement
RSS