Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and former legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) have promised to attend a housing justice and judicial reform rally on Sunday on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.
It is ironic that the four men are to attend a rally to protest housing unaffordability.
Gou is one of the richest people in Taiwan; Ko was the mayor of the most unaffordable city in terms of housing prices; while Hou and Huang have large real-estate holdings.
Hou ’s 103 studios close to Chinese Culture University in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) have earned him a lot of money in rent. For each studio, Hou can charge NT$16,000 (US$512) per month, which means he can bring in more than NT$1.6 million per month without doing any work. Huang’s family owns 15 plots of land and eight properties totaling 6,650m2. Huang says they are small plots of land for growing vegetables.
However, one of the plots has been converted into a parking lot, from which the family is estimated to be earning NT$60,000 to NT$70,000 per month.
Seeing this band of four at the rally is likely to trigger outrage at their supposed “support” of housing justice. Their participation is a ploy to gain recognition they do not deserve. They are like mafiosas protesting how bad social security is. In China, they would be described as “waving the red flag against the red flag.”
Some analogies might help describe their involvement:
Some Chinese people drive their beloved Japanese vehicles while they join Beijing-endorsed rallies against Japanese products; the director of a Chinese national Buddhist association sexually abused female disciples, practicing Buddhism and sexual assault at the same time; corrupt Chinese officials enter government agencies with cash in their hands, demonstrating the hypocrisy of Chinese officialdom and bureaucracy.
This kind of person proves that corruption would not be opposed seriously and would not be fought on a large scale.
Are Gou, Ko, Hou and Huang like this? They know that housing justice should be supported, but would they support it seriously? Would they back a large-scale effort to address it?
The realization of housing justice would shatter their lives.
It remains to be seen what this band of four would do for ordinary people. Nothing can be hidden from discerning eyes.
Yu Kung is a Taiwanese entrepreneur working in China.
Translated by Emma Liu
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