While hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to show their displeasure with the ineffectual performance and potential betrayal of the country’s sovereignty by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his first 100 days in office, media have also been discussing the alleged “money laundering” by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Chen had wired, via his wife, US$20 million to bank accounts overseas. While it is being investigated as to whether what Chen did qualifies as money laundering, some felt betrayed; some felt vindicated and many others were shocked.
Regardless of the outcome, this exposes how Taiwanese politics is and has been one big, long gravy train.
These events should be a wake-up call to examine the real problem that plagues Taiwan. It is a problem that predates Chen — an age-old Taiwan problem that is human, cultural and historical.
First, the simple human factor. Politicians are no saints and they should not be idolized. Their first inclination is to look out for number one.
In the US, members of Congress have an almost fail-safe retirement package and vote themselves annual raises regardless of their performance. Even with such benefits within the law and a substantial salary, many still turn to fraud and corruption. Human nature rarely becomes more humble or more generous when it gains power.
If this happens in the US, where there is greater transparency with many more checks and balances, then you can be sure that you will find the same and much more in Taiwan, a country that desperately needs the necessary sunshine laws to combat corruption.
Second, the cultural factor. All cultures have backdrops that facilitate perpetuating power and personal gain. In ancient times in the West, rulers promoted a belief in the “divine right” of kings to justify their hold on power.
In Taiwan, Confucianism supports those in power by its system of unchanging hierarchical roles of superiors to subordinates and by promoting unquestioning trust in the benevolence of those in the superior role.
This also creates a culture that craves a cult figure at the top. To preserve such a fantasy, the crimes of past figures like dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung (毛澤東) must be glossed over.
Those in power feel they not only deserve the privilege but are entitled to it for life. All this is antithetical to a democracy where people can be voted out if they fail in their responsibilities.
A culture and society with a sense of fixed and assigned roles leads to an individual’s achievement, advancement and value becoming based more on relationships than performance. Life is not what you know, but who you know.
Guanxi takes precedence over all: Who do you know in the top roles of the food chain?
This becomes the established order of things; and those who profit and have worked the system don’t like it when someone questions it.
With guanxi comes the red envelope. Payment is expected for favors, attention and assistance. Extra help in school — the teacher gets a red envelope. Special attention in a hospital — the doctor gets a red envelope.
Despite changes, everyone has experienced this red envelope system at some point in his or her life. If this pervades at these lower levels of society, it will surely be present in the upper elements of politics.
Add this to the problems of human nature and you have a ready recipe for abuse.
This brings us to the history of how the political gravy train entered Taiwan.
In the late 1940s, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retreated to Taiwan from China, bringing with it all its political baggage. Though China was lost because of unbridled corruption, that same system was transplanted to Taiwan.
Mao had upset the KMT balance, challenged its hierarchy and sent it packing.
Despite this, the KMT still thought it was culturally superior and belonged at the top of the Chinese hierarchy; so began Taiwan’s suffering.
The KMT did not want democracy. It started with human and cultural weaknesses and added another unchanging element — the one-party state replete with a megalomaniac leader bent on creating a cult image.
Taiwan had the longest stretch of martial law in world history.
To preserve its hierarchical one-party state system, rewards, pay-offs and punishments were placed at each and every level. The schools were forced to maintain propagandized versions of KMT history and all printing was tightly monitored so no questionable or contrary ideas could be published.
The government was devoid of transparency and anyone who questioned it was either jailed or eliminated.
Loyalty to the system was bought up and down the hierarchy. One of the greatest abuses that had to be overcome in the struggle for democracy were the KMT’s “iron rice bowl” Legislative and National Assembly seats, which weren’t eliminated until 1992 and then only after the Wild Lily Protest.
Imagine someone elected in 1947 claiming the privilege to hold office for half a century or until death without having to run again, or imagine someone who came in second or third in the 1947 election in China being given the privilege to replace the incumbent member in Taiwan upon his death?
That is only the tip of the iceberg. The guanxi and gravy train systems permeate every corner of Taiwanese politics.
Downstream were the special and discretionary funds for each office that still exist today, a veritable tribute system for all politicians.
Add to this under-the-table deals in military purchases, infrastructure projects and the like and you begin to see the historical reality behind Taiwanese politics. You begin to see how extensive the pay-off system is and how easy it is to accumulate millions of dollars to transfer overseas.
The gravy train extends beyond the political. Two classic examples of bought loyalty are Taiwan’s teachers and military. Their unquestioning loyalty came at the price of being deemed tax-exempt.
This guaranteed support for the KMT’s propaganda machine in the education and military sectors.
Only now, as the country buckles under this large economic burden, are these tax-exempt privileges finally being given up.
Enter now Chen and the blind hatred some KMT supporters have for him. To understand this, think of how some hardcore US Republicans unswervingly hate former US president Bill Clinton and you will have a sense of the KMT’s hatred for Chen. Why? Chen challenged and exposed the anti-democratic nature of the KMT’s one-party state in the trials following the Kaohsiung Incident.
After a power split in the KMT, Chen became the first DPP mayor of Taipei.
In the same way he later had the audacity to take the presidency from the KMT.
Chen upset the established order of KMT superiority, privilege and sense of entitlement. He did this not as a rival KMT aspirant to the throne but as a farm-born DPP Taiwanese from outside the system. It was Mao revisited.
To add insult to injury, Chen now used the system the KMT had set up and profited greatly from it.
Chen is guilty — guilty of using what the KMT created. Caught between their hatred for Chen and the risk of exposing the reality of their system, the KMT has taken the risk that the public will be blind to that greater reality.
Here’s a prediction: After all of the hullabaloo over laundered money and corruption, the only thing that Chen will be found guilty of is transferring undeclared income.
People First Party Chairman James Soong, a breakaway KMT member, was found guilty of the same several times. His fault was that he would not wait his turn in the system and so he was exposed. Soong paid the minimal taxes owed and the scandals faded away.
To be sure, the KMT will try to milk the corruption accusations for all they are worth, but in the end, the KMT system will, ironically, protect Chen. This is not laundered money, this is system money.
Now Chen is even trying to escape paying taxes on the money — as Ma did when he was in the hot seat — but so far Chen does not have a secretary to take the fall for him.
There are naive waifs who say that Taiwan has changed.
“That was the old KMT,” they say.
But that is nonsense. Parts of the system are gone, but the core remains. Another Wild Lily movement is needed against the system and difficult cultural and historical questions must be asked.
Who created the gravy train system? The KMT.
Who profited most under the system? The KMT and later the DPP.
Who hopes that exposing Chen distracts from the system? The KMT.
Who has always controlled the Legislative Yuan and preserved the system? The KMT.
Who is still blocking sunshine bills? The KMT.
Who sells their vote for a mere NT$5,000 or less and preserves the system? The public.
And finally, the most difficult question of all to face: Which party still holds the stolen state assets that make the playing field of Taiwan’s democracy uneven? The KMT.
Is this one-sided? The reality of Taiwan’s history is and has always been one-sided. The sons still profit from the sins of their fathers. Although human nature will never change, culture can be adjusted and history can be revised. Is there a Wild Lily movement out there willing to take all this on?
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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