Former premier Simon Chang (張善政), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate for Taoyuan mayor, was recently accused of plagiarizing parts of a research report for which he was paid NT$17.4 million (US$563,654) from Council of Agriculture funds in 2009. While the budget for the project was a staggering NT$57.36 million, the report was said to contain only six pages of original research, which made each Chinese character worth more than NT$1,000.
Chang’s campaign team hired lawyer and former Taoyuan County Agriculture Bureau director Chen Li-ling (陳麗玲) to refute the allegations. Chen praised Chang for following in the footsteps of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who he said “revolutionized agriculture with technology,” a reference to Chang developing a system to trace agricultural products via QR codes.
Japanese engineer Masahiro Hara invented the QR code in 1994, but it was several years later that the technology was widely seen in everyday use, including commercial transactions. Hara had known that he had invented an excellent piece of technology, but he had not expected his brainchild to be applied to financial transactions, let alone a wide range of fields and industries.
Although his invention has become ubiquitous, we have not seen him dub himself a “father of finance” or a “father of agriculture.”
Chen is mistaken to credit Chang with agricultural product QR code traceability. The Council of Agriculture first launched a trial project of product traceability in 2004. In 2006, the council introduced safety measures such as the agricultural traceability system and the Certified Agricultural Standards system into what was called “the new agricultural movement,” to respond to heightened public expectations for food safety.
The Agriculture and Food Agency in 2015 began pushing for a traceable labeling system via QR code. It has helped farmers already using the QR code to upgrade their products’ tracking systems, giving consumers “farm-to-table” traceability and enhancing public trust in local agricultural products.
As the timeline for these events do not coincide with Chang’s research on agricultural digitization, which was conducted from 2007 to 2009, Chen’s praise of Chang as “a modern Chiang Ching-kuo of agriculture” is somewhat overblown.
Additionally, has Chang ever published any research on agricultural technology? Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was not only called the “father of democracy,” but was also a doctor of agricultural economics. With a firm belief that agriculture is the foundation of Taiwan’s economic development, Lee’s doctoral thesis — which was about the imbalance between agricultural and industrial development in Taiwan — was in 1969 awarded “best doctoral thesis of the year” by the American Association of Agricultural Economics.
The nine major initiatives to accelerate agricultural development proposed by Lee resulted in an increase in farmers’ revenue. When Lee was appointed as Taipei mayor, he helped the tea plantations in Taipei’s Muzha District (木柵) become tourist destinations, paving the way for Taiwan’s agritourism industry.
During his assignment as Provincial Government chairman, Lee introduced a policy to deploy 80,000 agricultural specialists to farming communities to provide assistance, prompting structural changes in agriculture.
No one has more right to be revered as a “modern Chiang Ching-kuo” than Lee for his exceptional contribution to Taiwan’s agricultural development. For Chang to be paid NT$17.4 million for the research and then be named the “Chiang Ching-kuo of agriculture and technology” is truly shameful.
Chin Ching is an educator.
Translated by Rita Wang
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