The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has proposed a bill to promote transitional justice and form a committee under the auspices of the Presidential Office to handle issues related to transitional justice, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten assets. To this the KMT has said that Taiwan does not need a political vendetta in the name of transitional justice, adding that issues surrounding its assets had already been resolved during the DPP’s eight years in office from 2000 to 2008, while each KMT chairperson since then has done what was required to straighten things out within the party.
Its response appeared as if it had nothing to worry about. However, the KMT maintained its legislative majority when the DPP was in power. At the time, even getting a budget for arms purchases proved difficult — not to mention achieving transitional justice. This time around, the legislative situation has changed, and of course it is time for a renewed review and active implementation of transitional justice. If this is a political vendetta, should what happened in Germany after World War II not also be called a political vendetta against the Nazis?
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly promised to return the KMT’s assets to zero during his eight years in office. Voters sold on this promise were twice tricked into electing him as the nation’s president. As Ma gets ready to step down as president, that promise still has not been delivered — just as was the case with his “6-3-3” campaign pledge from 2008 to achieve 6 percent annual GDP growth, annual per capita income of US$30,000 and an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent.
When New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) became KMT chairperson, all he did was canvass with nice-sounding slogans that never translated into results, much like his predecessor. The candidates of the party’s upcoming chairperson by-election cannot even say the precise scale of the party’s assets. It seems that the ones who do know all the details are intent on keeping a low profile and staying hidden in some dark place. This makes it clear that, when it comes to clarifying issues related to party assets and returning them, the KMT is likely to always remain passive and not take any action to resolve the matter.
Following the KMT’s defeat in January’s presidential and legislative elections, the party hurried to liquidate its assets, selling several lots of land, including a plot where the Taipei Twin Towers were planned to be built. Such dubious actions inevitably invite suspicion. If the KMT again succeeds in procrastinating over the issue or obscuring the truth, four years from now transitional justice in Taiwan will still be a long way off. Sticks and stones might break the KMT’s bones, but words will never hurt it.
As the KMT chairperson by-election approaches, its main candidates continue to defend the party’s assets. Some have even proposed that the assets be distributed among its members, defending the assets’ legitimacy and contribution, as if they had no idea that these assets are a source of evil. The reason the KMT’s assets have been denounced is because of the way they were acquired.
After the KMT accepted the Japanese forces’ surrender, it pocketed Japanese assets for itself, making them part of its own assets. During the KMT’s authoritarian rule, the party treated the nation’s coffers as its own and ran business monopolies as party-run enterprises. It also gave outside organizations special political privileges at the expense of the general public. All these actions contributed to making the KMT the richest political party in the world. This is what happens when power is combined with party assets: a complicated web of ties between government and business.
Some have proposed that the gold and artworks preserved in the National Palace Museum that late presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) brought to Taiwan should be returned to China. This argument — amid the public outcry over the party’s ill-gotten assets — is not only absurd, but apparently intent on distracting the public from what really needs to be done to achieve transitional justice.
The pro-China groups sold on this argument probably do not even realize that even in authoritarian China the idea of transitional justice has already been proposed and clearly set out in Charter 08, a manifesto released in 2008 by Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists. That pro-China groups in Taiwan see transitional justice as something that must be avoided at all costs suggests they are no different from the Chinese officials oppressing the signatories of Charter 08.
Essentially, they are just like Beijing: They want authoritarianism as well as unification. If there was any one thing that helped Taiwan’s early economic development, it was US assistance in the form of funds and goods, as well as being welcomed into international markets by Western democracies. The gold that the Chiangs brought from China never contributed to Taiwan’s economic development — it was not even enough to maintain the army.
The KMT’s assets are a virtual black box into which few people even within the party have insight. Despite the closure of cases involving the KMT’s sales of China Television Co, Broadcasting Corp of China and Central Motion Pictures Corp in 2014, unanswered questions regarding the party’s assets still abound. Ma, then-KMT chairperson, was in charge of the sales, but even members of the party’s Central Standing Committee were kept in the dark, which makes the cases even more mysterious.
According to the party’s asset report, the value of its assets has been extremely volatile, from more than NT$90 billion (US$2.74 billion) at one point to last year’s NT$16.6 billion — and that was only what was on the books. As for the rest of the iceberg, only God knows how much more there is — at least until the truth comes to light. This alone should be sufficient reason to launch an investigation into the KMT’s assets.
If the KMT believes it has nothing to hide, a thorough investigation would help clear its name as part of transitional justice. Democracy cannot be held back. According to a poll conducted by the magazine Business Today, nearly 70 percent of respondents said that the KMT’s assets should be returned. If the KMT continues to cling to its assets, it will only end up worse off.
Returning party assets to help achieve transitional justice would help correct past mistakes and, more importantly, further consolidate Taiwan’s democracy. As the nation has entered the democratic era, the KMT’s use of its ill-gotten assets to finance its election campaigns and reward political support has given it an unfair advantage over other political parties. Furthermore, the KMT has used these assets to promote party unity, refusing to listen to public opinion or promote more localized policies, despite its landslide defeat in the elections.
The KMT’s assets are as detrimental to the party as a malignant tumor is to the human body. Unless this tumor is removed, the KMT cannot attend to public opinion or see the public as the masters of the nation. Only when the assets are returned will the party be willing to identify with Taiwan and correct its policies, which have deviated from public needs. It is also the only way that the party will fully adhere to democratic procedures; all of which would ultimately improve Taiwan’s democracy.
The KMT has been suffering from a chronic disease, the source of it being its ill-gotten assets. Nonetheless, through the presidential and legislative elections Taiwanese have created the healthy environment needed to cure it. This is no political vendetta, or even transitional hatred, as some have called it. Those within the KMT hoping to reform the party should be positive about its outcome.
Meanwhile, the same holds true for the DPP: If, as the ruling party and legislative majority, the DPP should become corrupt and turn the ideal of transitional justice into a self-serving discourse, it would inescapably be voted out in the next election. This is the way things work in a democracy. The party-state is long gone. The people are the masters, as well as the judges: Those who follow their wishes shall rule, and those who do not shall have to step down.
Translated by Yu-an Tu
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