As you read this, 85-year-old Chiang Bei-bei’s (蔣伯伯) ramshackle house in Taipei’s Huaguang Community (華光社區) will have been pulverized by bulldozers sent by the central government. Like many other residents of the community, Chiang barely ekes out a living and the government’s decision to raze the community to erect a glitzy neighborhood condemns him to destitution. While business tycoons and the central government pour millions of dollars into China’s Sichuan Province following Saturday’s earthquake, the fate of Chiang and others is ignored.
No sooner had the magnitude 6.6 quake hit Yaan City than the Executive Yuan, along with tycoons like Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) and Want Want China Times Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), announced they would make donations to help with relief efforts and reconstruction. Gou and Tsai alone donated more than US$10.5 million, with actors, singers and other business leaders also making contributions.
While this outpouring of generosity is commendable, it raises serious questions about those people’s priorities. Just as with the 2008 quake in Sichuan, what the Chinese government needs is emergency aid in the form of food, medicine and expert medical teams — not money, which it has plenty of.
Even more disturbing is that not a single one of those donors has bothered to say anything about, let alone provide just a fraction of the money they are sending to China, to help destitute people in Taiwan. The destruction of Huaguang, the forced relocation of its predominantly elderly residents, the lack of proper assistance from the government and the fines that this same government has imposed on those people, is just one among many examples in Taiwan of situations where desperate people should receive help.
Many of the residents, including Chiang, are not entitled to social assistance and are being forced to move into social housing in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港). In most cases, their meager earnings are insufficient to cover the NT$13,000 rent, while the small businesses that they operated are now uprooted.
For the rich and powerful, the residents of Huaguang are nothing. In fact, their presence on this prime plot of land in the heart of Taipei stands in the way of further riches. Those who have extended a helping hand are mostly students, social organizations and private individuals.
While the wealthy donate to China, it is artists like film director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), who last week donated his NT$1 million (US$33,520) in prize money from the National Cultural Award to help finance reconstruction of the partially demolished Losheng (Happy Life) Sanatorium in New Taipei City (新北市), who man the front lines in the local war between the haves and the have-nots.
Of course, the large donations to China have a self-serving component, as it ingratiates the tycoons with the Chinese authorities and opens the door to large investments in future. Which is why the wealthy cannot be bothered with the fate of Taiwan’s own poor.
This is shameful. Taiwan is, by any metric, a modern and wealthy country, and the refusal by the government and the more fortunate to help those in need flies in the face of the very values that underpin society. One-tenth — one-hundredth — of the money generously donated to Sichuan to help its people recover from a natural catastrophe would go a long way in helping people like the displaced residents of Huaguang, the victims of human agency, live their last few years in dignity rather than destitution.
Gou and Tsai, whose interests in China are well known, are not alone in this. There are plenty of extraordinarily rich people in Taiwan who could make a difference, but who are not lifting a finger.
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
Sitting in their homes typing on their keyboards and posting on Facebook things like, “Taiwan has already lost its democracy,” “The Democratic Progressive Party is a party of green communists,” or “President William Lai [賴清德] is a dictator,” then turning around and heading to the convenience store to buy a tea egg and an iced Americano, casually chatting in a Line group about which news broadcast was more biased this morning — are such people truly clear about the kind of society in which they are living? This is not meant to be sarcasm or criticism, but an exhausted honesty.
Much has been said about the significance of the recall vote, but here is what must be said clearly and without euphemism: This vote is not just about legislative misconduct. It is about defending Taiwan’s sovereignty against a “united front” campaign that has crept into the heart of our legislature. Taiwanese voters on Jan. 13 last year made a complex decision. Many supported William Lai (賴清德) for president to keep Taiwan strong on the world stage. At the same time, some hoped that giving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) a legislative majority would offer a
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