The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ruled the nation without separating the party from government for more than half a century. During this time, there were clear distinctions between party members and non-party members in staff appointments, clear lines between party-run and non-party-run businesses and clear differences between party-run and non-party-run nongovernmental organizations.
As a result of that imbalanced political situation, KMT-affiliated organizations, such as the China Youth Corps, the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and the National Women’s League of the Republic of China, as well as military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers, who are generally seen as staunch KMT supporters — wittingly or unwittingly — have become part of the KMT’s vested interests.
It is often said that with justice on your side, you can do anything, but without it, nothing can be done. As the KMT has had to surrender the Presidential Office and give up its legislative majority, it has discovered that while it could do as it pleased during the party-state era, in the era of transitional justice, it is being watched every step of the way.
Of course it is difficult for the party to give up all the public’s hard-earned assets that it laid its hands on and all its vested interests. When these vested interests defend themselves against people who really understand the situation, they start talking about contracts, opposing score-settling, asking for constitutional interpretations and holding demonstrations against libel and slander and so on.
While they might say any number of things, their implicit argument is always the same: It was OK before, so what is the problem now?
The China Youth Corps might claim that it wants to save the nation, but in practice, it is a for-profit organization that has long been allowed to rent public land, woodland and Aboriginal reserves at ridiculously cheap rents. The monthly rent for the Meishan China Youth Corps Youth Activity Center in Kaohsiung is NT$0.1 per ping (3.31m2), and for the youth activity center in Alishan, the annual rent is NT$1 per ping.
During the party-state era, who would dare to protest or complain? Now that the KMT is no longer protected by the Presidential Office and the legislature, the spotlight has been turned on the corps’ special privileges, but the organization’s leadership has not only refused to admit to any wrongdoing, to apologize or give up any of their privileges, the deputy director of its research and development office has even gone so far as to claim that “the corps has been renting land on the same conditions as everyone else.”
If that is not an out-and-out lie, then it is impossible to say what is.
In the beginning, the Red Cross Society, with its permanent president, forced students to buy Red Cross Society memorial stamps that could not be used to send mail, an embarrassing state of affairs that was not abolished until 1991.
In recent years, due to reductions in donations by members of the public for personnel and administrative purposes, the society has suffered from a lack of funds.
Shielded by the now abolished Red Cross Society Act of the Republic of China (中華民國紅十字會法), personnel, accounts and auditing were all hidden behind a veil of secrecy. The society’s leadership has said that the regulations were a special act and not a privilege.
They also claim that the society does not fall short of any other agency when it comes to disaster relief, and that without the protection of the act, its operations would be difficult and it would have to stop operating.
With such a fragile system, one wonders how anyone could feel confident in the society’s ability to provide disaster relief without far-reaching reforms.
Between 1955 and 1989, the National Women’s League pocketed NT$96.9 billion (US$3.09 billion at current exchange rates) paid as military welfare tax. Even if the question of the legitimacy of the military welfare tax bypassing the national treasury and scrutiny by the Ministry of Finance is left aside, one would think that the money should go toward military affairs, or that the Cheng Hsin Medical Center set up by the league should be dedicated to providing care for soldiers and their families.
The league’s branch in Paraguay continues to make donations to the St Francis nursing home belonging to the police administration. What does that have to do with the military welfare tax?
On April 4, 2014, the Women’s League placed an advertisement on the front page of the Chinese-language United Daily News in support of the cross-strait service trade agreement. Is that related to the military welfare tax? Do the funds for the May-ling Soong Chiang Scholarship that the league has established come from Soong Mei-ling’s (宋美齡) own pocket or from the league’s public funds? Would it not be more accurate to call it a scholarship for military personnel and their dependents?
Reform is never easy. This is evident in the battle for the act overseeing the KMT’s ill-gotten assets, which lasted for 14 long years. The pension reform that is just getting started is already leading to saber rattling between the reformers and retired military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers.
However, the stagnating international economy has resulted in a bottleneck for Taiwan’s economy, making reform of the pension system for military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers even more urgent. If there is another 14-year delay, any reforms will be too late.
The KMT has been playing dirty all along, but in the end the party has been unable to stop reform. This is a good example of what retired military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers have to look forward to.
The fact is that the vested interests that are the targets of reform only have three ways of responding. The best approach is to admit that the pie is only so big, and that if one side receives too big a slice, then everyone else will not get enough. Not very reassuring.
After thinking it through, they are likely to cooperate with reform efforts and adopt the healthy attitude that by only losing a little, they have in fact won; by giving up rights that have a negative effect on social fairness and justice, they might have lost something substantial, but they have gained their dignity.
Then there are those who have fought a long, scorched-earth battle to block reform. They have succeeded in protecting their vested interests, but there are no guarantees of how long this situation will remain unchanged. The only guarantee is that these people will have been permanently labeled boorish. Finally, there are those who behave like the KMT and resist, resist and resist again until they lose everything, including their dignity.
However, even signed agreements between states sometimes become worth less than the paper they are written on, so might it be possible to amend domestic laws and regulations or even administrative orders?
Voting constituencies, the voting age, the Referendum Act (公民投票法), income taxes and the housing tax can all be changed. If parts of the pension system for military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers are absurd and could result in the nation defaulting, should the system not be changed?
No one today denies that military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers made considerable contributions to the nation during their working lives, just as everyone acknowledges that these people did not make conscious efforts to gain the relatively generous benefits that they enjoy in retirement; they were given them by the system.
Nor does anyone complain about there being “one country, two systems” just because retired military personnel and elementary and junior-high school teachers who retired prior to 2010 have never have had to pay a single dollar in income tax.
Why then, do retired military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers deny the necessity of planning ahead in order to deal with the pension fund — which is insufficient to cover its expenditures — and why are they complaining when the government is trying to come up with a sustainable pension system?
It needs to be stressed again: If, prior to reform, everyone were to give a bit more consideration to the big picture and spend a little less time thinking about themselves and their own selfish interests, the social costs would be minimal. The vested interests that are opposed to reform should stop all their protests and complaints.
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 Perry Svensson
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.