Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The Real Source of Taiwan's Campaign Corruption

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

In its laws on campaign funding and party donations as well as the use of special government allowances, Taiwan has a corrupt system, created by a corrupt party to justify and shelter its corrupt gains. It was created by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in its one-party state colonial heyday, and has been in place in Taiwan for over sixty years. What is the source and cause of this corruption? The United China Daily in an editorial in September, 2008 put it plainly, "The primary reason is the lack of laws compelling public servants to explain the source of their wealth." Armed with the protection of this system innumerable politicians have been able to profit all the way from the KMT's one-party state days on up to the present. Further, the pan-blue controlled Legislative Yuan has refused to change this gravy train because they do not want to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. Chen Shui-bian's recent crime and fault is not in his alleged money-laundering and misuse of funds, but because he is a Taiwanese outside that corrupt system but has dared to use it and make similar profit.

Who cares about human rights when the world needs China so badly

MikeinTaipei

Even after the administration of US president George W. Bush realized it needed China’s help to combat international terrorism, launch an invasion of Iraq and deal with the North Korean nuclear issue, Washington continued to openly criticize Beijing on human rights. Tone down the criticism it certainly did, but criticism nevertheless remained.

The DPP’s struggle for one voice

Taipei Times

Exceptional circumstances call for exceptional action, and there is no doubt that Taiwan faces an exceptional predicament: Despite the Cabinet reshuffle that followed the mishandling of Typhoon Morakot, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is becoming increasingly detached from the public and impervious to criticism.

From the harsh ruling in the trial of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — marred by a reassignment of judges, political meddling and a ruling smacking of political retribution — to the administration’s refusal to listen to dissenting voices on cross-strait relations, the government is acting according to an agenda that mocks transparency and ignores popular misgivings.

The Continuing Death of Justice in Taiwan: Deconstructing and Exposing the Hypocrisy of Ma Ying-jeou?

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

The brutal murder of Lin Yi-siung's mother and his two twin daughters (age 7) in broad daylight in their own home while Lin was in prison and his home was under 24-hour daily surveillance by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) one-party state secret police is one of the unsolved murders of the early 80s. Recently, Ma Ying-jeou in a seeming show of concern with justice for Taiwan's past had directed that this case and others be re-opened. To many however, it soon became apparent that Ma did not want to find answers but simply wanted a shallow, cursory examination to thus forever exonerate the KMT administration and provide himself with a facile excuse. Once completed, he could then spout to foreign media, "my administration in its concern for justice re-opened the cases from the past but unfortunately we found no other leads," and the foreign media would write how noble Ma was in trying to rectify the past etc. etc.

Murder probe reveals nothing new

Bruce Jacobs 家博

When the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced it would reinvestigate two of the remaining unsolved murder cases from 1980 and 1981, many people hoped that new information would be found. The murder of the mother and twin daughters of then-imprisoned provincial assemblyman Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄) on Feb. 28, 1980, and the death and apparent murder of Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成), a Taiwanese professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, on July 3, 1981, following his interrogation by the Taiwan Garrison Command created great concern in Taiwan. These murders took place after several years of liberalization under then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), a liberalization that came to a dramatic halt with the widespread arrests following the Kaohsiung Incident on Dec. 10, 1979.

US Congress Has Screening of "Formosa Betrayed" Film

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan's struggle to create a democracy over the constraints of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) one-party state took decades. The film, "Formosa Betrayed" presents a composite of events in the 1980s and how the KMT was responsible for several high profile murders to try and contain those seeking a multi-party state democracy. As the US Congress watches the film, it should be aware of how often certain elements in its own government will co-opt to work with dictatorships like the KMT once had and betray the ideals of the founding fathers of the USA. They must always learn to look behind the scenes.

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