Readers of yesterday's newspaper may have seen two separate stories with an interesting, though unremarked upon link. In one, former president Lee Teng-hui (
The link between these stories lies in the history of the Bamboo Union. The gang was formed in the mid-1950s in Yonghe by the disaffected kids of Mainlander parents who banded together to stop themselves getting beaten up by Hoklo hooligans. Perhaps because so many of its members came from military families, the gang was far better organized and more prepared to use violence than its Hoklo rivals, and had soon used its muscle to become a major force in Taipei.
The gang prospered in an atmosphere where the authorities were far more concerned with political dissidence than with basic law and order issues, but it was in 1980 that the Bamboo Union really made it to the big time. In the late 1970s, the democracy movement and tangwai activism, as exemplified by the Chungli incident in 1977 and the Kaohsiung Incident two years later, had been getting more and more vigorous. In the wake of the Kaohsiung Incident, high-ranking Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials met with Chen Chi-li (
It was a typical "white glove" operation. The government realized it was getting an ugly reputation through its repressive tactics, and so gave the Bamboo Union a degree of impunity in return for being able to use the gang's muscle against the democracy movement. The most notorious result of this was the slaying of the writer Henry Liu (
As Taiwan started to democratize, gang connections became useful to the KMT in a different way. The KMT decided that as it actually had to fight elections, then it might as well load the dice in its favor. So it relied on its gang connections -- indeed still does -- to buy votes. The problem was that the party also had to be seen by the public as doing something about crime and public order. As a result it had the interesting technique of using the gangs when it wanted, and throwing some high level mem-bers in jail when it needed to buff up its law and order credentials.
The gangsters soon learned that rather than simply enjoying the KMT's mercurial protection, they could enjoy more protection by entering politics themselves and availing themselves of the constitutional protection from arrest elected officials enjoyed.
And so we end up with a legislature dominated by a party extensively connected to racketeers, many of whose legislators are racketeers themselves. This should not be a surprise. Corruption and violence have always been the KMT's stock in trade.
If Taiwan had anything like the US' Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, being a member of the KMT could be made a criminal offense. The government would shy away from this because it would face criticism abroad for "anti-democratic" behavior. But the KMT is not a political party as these are generally understood elsewhere; rather it is, as it has always been, an organized crime syndicate masquerading as a political party. And as such there are very real questions about whether, once it looses control of the legislature and some hard-hitting laws can be put on the books, it should be allowed to exist at all.
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
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