Compelled by embarrassment and pressure over numerous Taipei policemen's ties with the sex industry, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Actually, after Ma defeated Chen in the last Taipei mayoral election, many brothel operators in Taipei City allegedly rejoiced over the beginning of a new era. This was because Chen had mobilized the entire city government for a major crackdown on the sex industry. While the campaign was largely successful, some high-handed tactics were used, including shutting off water and electricity supplies and the forcible dismantling of buildings. The moves attracted criticism, some from Ma himself. Brothel owners reasoned that Ma, from the corrupt KMT, some of whose councilors were linked to the sex trade, had to be more lenient than the puritanical Chen.
And so he has been -- at least until now. The crackdown on the sex trade was abandoned and the industry has steadily revived.
The lesson for Ma should be that any crackdown on the sex industry requires long-term and continuous effort. Ma's goal, therefore, of suppressing the industry in a month is therefore laughably unrealistic. We can only assume that Ma is interested in making a "three-minute heatwave" to capture some headlines and salvage his own reputation before his re-election bid.
Plainly, the recent police scandals are the reasons for the new crackdown. However, the campaign, although much needed, does not target directly the real evil the scandals have highlighted.
Ask anyone on the street what he or she finds most appalling about these scandals and most will say that it is the fact that the police are profiting from the sex industry by either working in the industry or kidnapping Chinese prostitutes from the brothels for ransom. That the sex industry exists because of some element of police corruption is probably common knowledge. What is truly shocking is the extent of the corruption these recent cases have revealed. What the city needs is not a campaign against the sex industry but the merciless rooting out of police corruption.
Of course, punishing members of one's own city government is a lot more challenging, especially when their assistance will be much needed in the upcoming mayoral election.
Ma isn't interested in "cleaning up" Taipei, rather this publicity hound wants a good photo opportunity. That's why instead of purging the city police force and going after the councilors involved in the sex industry, he prefers to arrest a few prostitutes who have no power, no money, and -- in the case of the Chinese illegals -- no right to vote.
The simple fact is that no government thus far has completely eradicated the world's oldest profession in a way compatible with the maintenance of civil liberties. What is shocking about Taipei's sex industry is not that it exists at all but that it has become so big largely as a result of an intricate web of political and police backing which protects it. Once this web is removed, or at least confined, the sex industry will lose much of its vitality.
The situation facing Taipei City recalls Chicago during Prohibition when gangster Al Capone had most of the police force and city officials on his pay roll. If only Mayor Ma could find someone like Elliot Ness. Is he even looking?
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS