Amid allegations -- and denials -- that members of the legislature's Finance Committee have pressured state-run banks into investing in their venture capital companies, there is one simple question that must be asked: How could it even be possible for such investment to take place?
It is ironic that this furor has blown up amid the ongoing debate about the KMT's assets. Almost everyone, even leading members of the KMT itself, is agreed that there is an obvious conflict of interest between the government, with its powers to regulate and influence the economy, and the party that dictates policy being one of the economy's major players. So it is surprising that it is only the question of arm-twisting that is at issue over whether the government itself or state-run banks have been investing in these venture capital companies.
Frankly, we find the rumors of coercion dubious, not because the members of the Finance Committee supposedly involved have impeccable reputations but rather the opposite -- their reputations are so unsavory that, like the fighting cock trained by the sage Chuang Tze (
If coercion is not the point, what is? Surely the relationship between legislators and government agencies. How could it be even possible for a government agency to invest in a company of which a legislator is the majority shareholder? How is it possible for a legislator who sits on a committee overseeing the operating budget of a lending institution to also be a borrower of that institution or even be allowed to ask to borrow from it? How can legislators who are supposed to oversee the performance of government institutions also be beneficiaries of those institutions whether it be investment in their companies, loans from state-owned banks, construction contracts or 101 other ways of using one's influence as a legislator for fun and profit?
It can happen because Taiwan has no conflict of interest legislation worthy of the name, nor is it likely to have any in the near future, for obvious reasons.
Does the government want to change things? Perhaps. It can hardly be unaware that the gangsterization of Taiwan politics is matter of deep public concern. And, in fact, it does what it can to offset some of the more outrageous examples of that depressing trend -- the furor about the venture capital companies coming from strategically placed leaks within the Executive Yuan in the first place.
But this is like giving a patient dying of cancer a cure for acne. It doesn't even come close to addressing the real problem, which is, not that legislators abuse their position but that the government tolerates and sometimes abets their doing so, and it does this because the ruling party depends on the electoral assets controlled by these legislators to stay in power.
It is instructive to compare Taiwan with the US, where huge strides have been made against the power of organized crime in the past two decades. Why? Mainly because the government had the political will, and the law enforcement authorities had the legal weapons available to be able to break the back of the Mob. Here in Taiwan, there exists neither.
Perhaps Taiwan's fate, then, is not to become a Western-style democracy, but rather to imitate the so-called narco-democracies of South America, where elections are competitions between rival mobsters for the political power that they can use to legitimize themselves using the resources of the state, such as the armed forces, to destroy their opponents. It is surprising that more has not been made of this matter with an election looming. After all, it is a valid question: where would you rather live, Switzerland or Colombia?
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