On the insistence of President and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the KMT recently outlined a new “three noes” principle — “no private settlement, no loose handling and no messing up.” This came in response to a court decision that People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) can now legally withdraw NT$240 million (US$7.65 million) related to the Chung Hsing Bills Finance case and deposited with the court several years ago.
The KMT has pledged to recover the money and donate it to charity. By taking this rare tough stance, Ma has indicated that the KMT wants to resolve the dispute in line with public opinion and based on law, reason and emotion. What a statement!
The problem is that if Ma really cares so much about public opinion, why has he failed to dispose of the party’s ill-gotten assets, described as “public enemy No. 1” during his two terms as party chairman? Even his close friend C.V. Chen (陳長文), president of the Red Cross Society, once wrote an article advising the KMT to “give up party assets and settle historical issues to gain respect,” suggesting that the party should donate the assets to either the government or charity after the 2008 presidential election. The KMT has yet to take his advice.
In other words, the disposal of the KMT’s assets has been constantly delayed. Incomprehensibly, most of those assets, with the notable exception of Central Investment Holding Co, have now magically disappeared. According to a three-stage plan announced by Ma late last year, the KMT is scheduled to dispose of the company by next month, and all its ill-gotten gains by the end of this year.
Although Central Investment Holding has a total net value of over NT$20 billion, if we deduct NT$18 billion for party operations, that leaves just NT$2 billion for charity. This could well be considered a violation of Ma’s originally stated objective of returning these assets to society. Certain officials have even argued that the money should be kept as part of an ongoing internal party struggle.
During Ma’s first term as KMT chairman in 2005, the unwinding of the party’s assets was extremely complex, with three affiliated corporations being sold — China Television Company (CTV), Central Pictures Corporation and the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) — causing much controversy. Under such circumstances, the KMT’s assets of tens or even hundreds of billions of NT dollars quickly disappeared. The party also rapidly disposed of land for the National Development Institute and three other plots, in deals worth more than NT$10 billion. All that money then promptly disappeared.
In 2008, the China Times Group sold the Chinese-language daily China Times and CTV to the Want Want Group. Also, BCC was divided into a radio broadcasting and asset management company. The first company retained responsibility for radio broadcasting. The latter, a new company, manages billions of NT dollars worth of real estate holdings. The KMT argued that the law prohibits political parties from running media outlets, but not from buying or selling property, this despite Ma’s promise that there would be no party-run businesses when he started his second term as KMT chairman. He said nothing about donations to charity.
The high court of Switzerland ruled in March that Italy’s UniCredit Group must return assets worth 230 million euros and inappropriately obtained by the former East German-ruling Socialist Unity Party to the Federal Republic of Germany. This is an example of transitional justice. Why is it that an independent judiciary in Taiwan has yet to reach the same conclusion? As for recovering the money involved in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance case, the amount involved pales into insignificance when compared with the KMT’s assets. Not to mention that it comes from multiple sources, such as government subsidies for the votes Soong received and political donations.
After reviewing the huge number of receipts collected by Soong over the past decade, KMT Legislator and chairwoman of Taiwan’s Certified Public Accountants Association Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) believes the KMT long since overdrew its “secretary-general’s special account” during Soong’s term in that position. That is why the court ruled that he was not guilty of embezzlement, and if the party wants to recover the money, it first needs to produce evidence that refutes this argument.
To be blunt, this situation arises out of an internal KMT power struggle.
To quote the theme song of the popular Chinese drama Prime Minister Hunchback Liu (宰相劉羅鍋), “Those in the story might be right; they might also be wrong.” Those who pass judgment without seeing the whole picture are simply echoing others.
Lu I-ming is former publisher and president of Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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