The use of the TaiMed Biologics Inc case in the lead-up to the Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inner circle has been called Ma’s Watergate. However, it is much more serious than that.
Ma pretended that he was innocent prior to the election, but the appointment of Christina Liu (劉憶如) as minister of finance and Lin Yih-shih (林益世) as Cabinet secretary-general was a blatant attempt to interfere in the judicial process as it relates to the TaiMed case.
Watergate started with the activities of members of former US president Richard Nixon’s inner circle arranging a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters to steal documents. The burglars were caught in the act. Nixon made the situation worse by trying to halt the investigation and destroy evidence implicating White House officials. Had he not done so, suspicions about his involvement might not have been raised, and he might never have been forced to resign under threat of impeachment.
However, Nixon had then-presidential counsel John Dean who squealed, whereas Ma’s former secretary Yu Wen (余文), has protected his master.
His attempts to destroy evidence unsuccessful, Nixon later sought to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who refused to end the investigation. His insistence that Cox be fired forced the resignations of attorney general Elliot Richardson and deputy attorney general William Ruckelshaus, in what was later called the Saturday Night Massacre. It made impeachment a near certainty, had he not resigned.
In the TaiMed case, members of Ma’s inner circle, including members of the current Cabinet and senior members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus, conspired to break the law, blatantly altering confidential documents.
This was a hundred times more serious than the actions that led to the Watergate scandal. The Democratic Progressive Party produced the original documents to prove that they had been altered, but once again the Ma machine worked its wonders. A special investigative team was set up to look into the matter, but appeared to disregard the forgeries out of hand.
Even though Ma himself was not involved in altering the documents or in destroying evidence, he was well aware that Liu stood accused of forgery and that the case was still under investigation, yet he still chose to re-appoint her and Lin. This suggests he was confident the investigative team would return a not-guilty verdict.
Watergate had its own heroes — individuals and institutions that did their duty and held to their convictions about what was right and just. There was “Deep Throat,” the informant; the Washington Post, which stuck with the investigation; Cox, who refused to let himself be intimidated by pressure to stop the investigation; and Richardson and Ruckelshaus, who both resigned rather than sack Cox, as Nixon had asked them to do. All of these men held firm in the fight against the abuse of power by the government, maintaining the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of US democracy.
Ma has not been found guilty of corruption for his role in the alleged forging of documents by Yu; he has managed to continue as an incompetent president thanks to alleged forgeries made by Liu; and now that he has been re-elected, he is attempting to interfere with the independence of the judiciary. He wants to turn Taiwan into a land where there is no right or wrong, where there is no fairness or justice.
Shortly after his election victory Ma said more work was needed on judicial independence. Those who voted for him should perhaps engage in some reflection of their own.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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