Following the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeat in last month’s presidential and legislative elections, a storm is brewing over how to finally deal with the party’s unfairly, unjustly, illicitly and improperly gained financial assets. When discussing the party’s ill-gotten wealth, there are several issues at stake that are far more important than the money itself.
First, the issue of party assets is a simple question of how they were obtained, and not whether they should be placed in trust. According to the “fruit of the poisonous tree” legal doctrine, irrespective of whether the assets originated from state-owned assets plundered from the ruins of the Japanese colonial government, private property, funds siphoned from the Treasury or public donations, the source of the KMT’s wealth has, from the very beginning, been built through improper means.
KMT officials have insisted that the party has “placed all its assets in trust.” The party seems to think that improperly obtained assets only need to be placed in trust and they will magically become clean and above-board. By adopting such a position, the party has reached new heights of disingenuousness.
Second, the issue is simply a question of returning them, not of making promises to “return party assets to zero” or “donating” them. The KMT is both the consignor and beneficiary of cash and government bonds placed in trusts. It is simply taking money from its left pocket and transferring it to its right pocket: Is this called “returning party assets to zero”?
“Zero assets” will only become a reality when the party sells all of its real estate and equity holdings. However, if these funds can still be controlled and used by the party and are not returned to their original owners — such as the Treasury, city and county governments, or members of the public whose assets were seized by force — then what is the meaning of “returning party assets to zero”?
As for the small number of properties that the KMT returned to their rightful owners, after decades of using them for its own means, they are hardly enough. Neither can it claim that the returned stolen properties were “donations” it made out of charity.
Finally, the issue of using proceeds from divested party assets should simply be a question of whether to spend the full amount on social welfare. There should be no question of using the proceeds to protect the pensions of retired and incumbent party workers.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said at a meeting in 2007 — when he was the KMT chairman — that the “entire proceeds from divested party assets would be spent on taking care of current and retired party workers.” How is this justifiable?
Imagine a group of bandits who had for many years looted and plundered the nation from top to bottom, and then buried their stolen booty in every nook and cranny of their mountain stronghold. When the stronghold was raided by the authorities, the bandits shamelessly and unabashedly said: “The looted, stolen, plundered and pilfered money and valuables are to be used to pay for the mortgages of our comrades, support our parents in their old age, fund the education of our children and pay for our health insurance.” Does this sound reasonable?
If the word for “shame” existed in the KMT’s lexicon, then the party would, overcome with guilt, humbly return its ill-gotten gains to their rightful owners instead of behaving so utterly disgracefully.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Edward Jones
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