KMT party property, revisited.

Update: whoops, missed this Taipei Times article on the subject. It's a very clear and well written article.

I have still not gotten around to posting about this incredibly important move by the KMT to clear themselves of party property problems and go on selling land and material that were stolen or 'given' to the party by the government in the past. Until now.

Remember that NT$55billion (US$1.6billion) had been sold by the KMT over the first 7 years of DPP rule, and total KMT worth could have been up to US$10billion as of 2001.

There are a lot of excellent details in the post, but it can be summarized like this:

• The DPP started pushing a law in September 2002. By 2004 there were PFP and TSU versions of the law. Main objectives would have been to review the process by which the KMT got a number of pieces of land and buildings that are now KMT party property. Many of these were either confiscated from Taiwanese (who had bought them from the Japanese before those soldiers left), taken over directly after the Japanese left (if the property had remained unsold), or gifted/sold out outrageously low rates (both happened) from the state to the party.
  
• These bills basically would have forced the KMT to compensate the government for stolen property or return it to the state (and I presume private owners/their decedents in those other cases).
• These laws were blocked in the Procedural Committee by the pan-blue majority 179 times over three Legislative Yuans. The KMT came up with its own lenient version of the bill, but didn't even pass that.
• The Interior Ministry, however, under DPP Executive control, labeled a number of KMT properties with a special code that would make it difficult for anyone buying KMT party property to later claim, "Hey, I'm just a third party who bought this property legally! Can't take it from me now!" just in case the bill ever was passed. That made it difficult for the KMT to convince anyone to buy the property.
  
• Now that the KMT's back in black, the new cabinet has removed this property code, reasoning that "the party property bills have been holed up in the legislature forever" so there is no legal basis for the code.
  

Shameless? Sure. Surprising? Not really. Could the DPP have done more? I think so, if they had bothered to mention the party property issue in public more often than the couple of weeks before an election.

Keep in mind the KMT has repeatedly promised to "solve" the party property issue, which they have also repeatedly openly stated means selling everything they own. They've also taken down a government sponsored website on this topic from the DPP days.

See also these related posts and sites for some background on the party property issue:

• Taiwan Quick Take: Editorial version
• DPP pushes party assets referendum
• 社團法人中國國民黨黨產總說明
• 國家資產經營管理委員會-黨產處理小組 (dead link since KMT executive rule resumed, but you can see that site using the way back machine here.)
  
• 台灣全民討黨產大聯盟
  

This is rich.

Shameless.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday said all KMT assets had been acquired legally, but added that the party must divest itself of them “within a short period of time.”

Speaking at the party’s Central Evaluation Committee meeting, Wu said that no KMT assets had been obtained illegally because if the KMT had any illegal assets, the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration would have confiscated them...

While the party had a net value of NT$20 billion (US$625 million) last year, Wu said that figure had dwindled to NT$10 billion. If the party rid itself of all its assets, Wu said, the money would go to party employee pensions, severance payments and utility bills. If there were any money left, it would be donated to civic agencies and disadvantaged groups, he said.

While the party used to have more than 4,700 full-time employees, Wu said the number had been cut to 900.

Yes, please pay no attention to the frequent and fruitless DPP efforts to confiscate the assets. And ignore the fact that the legislature was a huge obstacle to accomplishing that goal.

KMT cashola & the "who's dirtier" contest

Taipei Times has the story on the KMT's latest declaration of remaining assets:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is nearly 80 times richer -- in total asset terms -- than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), figures from the Ministry of the Interior show.

The KMT has assets worth more than NT$27 billion (US$821 million), while the DPP's assets amount to nearly NT$339 million.

In a rare peek at hard numbers from political parties' financial statements, some surprising information about the top parties appeared on the ministry's Web site yesterday (www.moi.gov.tw/home/home.asp).

Although it is no secret that the KMT possesses copious assets -- much of which its critics allege it plundered after Taiwan ceased to be a Japanese colony -- it might surprise some to know that the DPP's income for last year was more than double that of the KMT.

The DPP earned NT$661 million while the KMT pulled in a little more than NT$301 million.

In terms of net assets, the KMT boasts 100 times more asset value, or roughly NT$25.5 billion, to the DPP's nearly NT$253 million, the records show.

But the KMT is also saddled with more debt, nearly NT$1.6 billion as of last year, compared with the DPP's nearly NT$86 million.

Now the thing about party assets is people are always talking about different things. You could be talking about what the KMT brought with them to Taiwan from China (its hard to find a good cite-able source including values, but they took all the gold they could).

You could also be talking about what was acquired while on the island, often questionably or outright illegally. You might be talking about all the assets they later sold to friends, occasionally at fractions of the market price. And some people are talking about what's left over.

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Also, the DPP is going to try and get Ma involved in a few more scandals. Here's the news from Taipei Times and Taiwan News. I'll quote from Taiwan News:

With the presidential election almost nine months away, the governing Democratic Progressive Party yesterday formed a task force aimed at exposing scandals allegedly involving by Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the presidential candidate of the main opposition Kuomintang.

The task force constitutes DPP's legislators and Taipei City councilors, who would examine Ma from his tenure as Taipei City mayor between 1998 and 2006 through his party chairmanship and expose any scandals in which Ma might have been involved.

DPP caucus leader Wang Sing-nan said yesterday at a press conference that it was unfair that while the special investigation team had not looked into any of the numerous alleged wrongdoings that had involved Ma besides the special mayoral allowance case, the team had revived investigations into the old cases that had implicated the DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

Such a task force may or may not actually be able to damage Ma's reputation, but I find it rather depressing anyway. I also want the DPP to be able to beat Ma without a lawsuit hanging around his neck. That way it'll be harder for the blue voters to cry foul or think they were cheated.

KMT sold property to cover Lee's bad bills?

Pro-blue United Daily News reports an unnamed "high KMT official" today that the main reason Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) assets went from the Feb. 1987 level of NT$ 91.8 billion (US$2.79 billion) to the mere NT$31.1 billion (US$948 million) of the Ma Ying-jeou era is due to -- you guessed it -- former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).

The unnamed official, described as a "core individual" or key player (核心人士), explains that the main reason the property had to be sold was that Lee Teng-hui had left the party with about NT$40 billion in questionable accounts (壞帳), about half of the KMT's total assets at that time.

The source further expresses his believe that Lee Teng-hui had personally planned to pulverize the party property. (Alliteration, here I am!) He gives examples of these questionable accounts, including debts from contracts that went over budget in previous infastructure construction. He also admited other causes for the loss of property, including the losses (not revenue) of most remaining property and the costs of an increasing number of retired party workers, which has cost NT$10 billion alone in recent years.

Update: Whoah, looks like it could be more serious than that -- KMT lawyers will discuss if Lee Teng-hui should be sued over this, but so far they do not plan to press ahead with a lawsuit immediately. Wang Jin-pyng had the best remark, asking if the KMT actually intends to "sue Lee" or "respect Lee," the policy presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou announced this week (but, to be fair, the media coined the "respect Lee" phrase themselves).

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I'd like to stake out my position. Teng-hui was a crook as clever and conniving as the best of them. He does whatever he wants when he wants, and thankfully that benefited democratic change. I also happen to believe his leaving Lian Chan in charge -- but not his break with James Soong -- was planned and meant to hurt the KMT for the long run. And I think Wang Jin-pyng is his remaining agent, whose goal is to finish what Lee started and have the KMT become a truly nativized party by adopting the principal of Taiwanese self-determination.

I also can accept the credibilty of the sources charge. If I were Lee and wanted to "right a few wrongs" while I was in charge, this would certainly be one way to handle the party property issue. Another way would be to sell off vast amounts of questionably acquired property before anyone could stop it, so that the party comes away with at least some cash on hand, which Lee, Lian and Ma all did.

But I also am shocked by the total lack of self-reflection by the party on this issue, its total unwillingness to accept the illegitimacy of how it acquired and maintained its assets. And I am wondering, at what point will the KMT be able to blame themselves for their problems, instead of Lee and Chen?

Chiu Yi guilty, No arms for CEC, independent Wang? and more

Chiu Yi (邱毅) has lost his last appeal and has been sentenced for his role in an illegal demonstration in 2004. He has a 14 month sentence. The article says he is now facing the prison sentence and cannot run in the year end election. Horray! He also held a press conference to say A-bian had intervened to make sure he went to jail. DPP legislators have called for his right to leave the country to be restricted if there's any hint he's going to flee.

The KMT and DPP were both kicking around the idea of trading the arms bill for the CEC law. The KMT said they had to respect the PFP and hoped to talk to them more about it; the DPP said they liked the plan, but it was going to come down to the PFP's stance; and the PFP said forget it. For now, there's no chance it'll pass.

The KMT has a lot more people who want to run for the legislature (at least 152) than the DPP has (97 or so at this point?). That's good from the perspective of getting some defections over to the green side. In any case, the KMT says it will deal with each election area at a different time between April and June.

The DPP presidential candidate debate is this weekend.

Wang Jin-pyng refused to rule out running for president as an independent "during the negotiation phase." That seems to be a surprisingly strong statement from him. And he is not registered as a candidate for the 2007 election yet, a strong indication he's not hedging his bets.

The KMT wants Lien Chan, Wang Jin-pyng and Ma Ying-jeou to all show up for their big parade on 3/31. The parade, prompted by the name changes related to Chiang Kai-shek, is sure to be a doozy. The official them for the parade is: "Defend the Republic of China, oppose hatred, oppose corruption, oppose Taiwanese Independence; [We] want work, want clean government, and want peace" (捍衛中華民國，反仇恨、反貪污、反台獨；要工作、要清廉、要和平). They will also hold an event to remember the 30th anniversary of Chiang Kai-shek's death on April 5th.

Another clash in the Legislative Yuan is assured today. The KMT will again try to pass their bill that would assign seats to the Central Election Commission based on the proportional seats the party has in the legislature, and the DPP has vowed to prevent it again. The KMT move is probably meant to prevent any referendum the KMT sees as "scary" from being held at the same time as the legislative or presidential election.

The KMT stressed the lack of faith people have in the legal system and their hope it will be saved. This lack of faith ios a result of recent corruption charges, arrests, prosecutions and rumors. I am glad to be in an era where the guys can actually get charged, arrested and put in jail for these crimes. Of course, not many of them are getting caught. Guys in the business world tell me things are just as corrupt now as under the KMT, but you don't even know if your bribe will be effective (unlike before).

Some lawyers were at a civic conference talking about the KMT ill-gotten assets issue, and lawyer Chen Da-cheng (陳達成) suggested that private citizens who's property was taken should apply to have that property returned. The lawyer cited articles 71 and 72 of civic law, which he said should be basis enough to get the courts to return the property.

President has said he will, at least temporarily, not moderate negotiations over a future DPP presidential candidate. He did not rule out further negotiations at a later date.

DPP pushes party assets referendum

This should more or less destroy any chance of the KMT trading something to pass the arms bill.

The DPP began collecting signatures at the Chiayi train station today in its effort to get a referendum on the KMT party assets going for the next election. Even a TSU city councilor in Chiayi came to sign when he heard about the news. Expect to hear complaints on the evening news about this from the KMT. They will go something to the effect of "the DPP just wants to kill off the KMT, they're stirring ethnic hatred and they're too corrupt that bringing this up is shameless. Besides, the KMT is already taking care of this!"

If you're a legal Taiwanese voter who wants to sign the petition, go to this site. I also strongly recommend viewing the facts at this site and, just for laughs, the KMT's position.

公投討黨產 蔡同榮發起連署 (民視)

民進黨代理主席蔡同榮，今天在嘉義人來人往的火車站，發起追討國民黨黨產的公投連署，民眾熱情響應，還有人一口氣拿了一大疊，要回家給親朋好友一起簽名連署。大聲公加上現場工作人員的說明，讓這個小小的連署站，人潮沒停過。不只是火車站裡人來人往的旅客坐下來簽名，還有人聽到消息，騎車來要連署單。就連同屬綠營的台聯市議員也前來參予連署表達支持。而這個連署的最終目的，是要在七月底前達到一百萬人連署的目標。這個星期假日只是個開始，民眾的熱情反應也讓蔡同榮有信心，讓公投討國民黨黨產的議題，持續在各地發酵。

Taiwan Quick Take: Editorial version

正名運動 Name Rectification

This is a losing issue for the KMT, and they aren't helping themselves by talking about it. They should let A-bian quietly do it, make very little protest. They certainly shouldn't talk about how they'd change the post office name back. This will hurt them.

國民黨黨內狀況 KMT Internal Situation

Ma has moved too fast by announcing his candidacy; he's lost the moral high ground. When he called for A-bian to step down, even taking out an ad, he insisted the indictment was a very good reason for a resignation; by declaring his own candidacy in identical circumstances, he's gonna lose a lot with the non-hardcore voters.

He won't be able to find a peaceful apartment in Kaohsiung, so I'm not sure why he wants to move down there. He's going to end up with protesters all over him. It's not a face-saving plan.

Honorary KMT Chairman Lien Chan is flying out of the bat cave to try and hold the KMT together and prevent any sort of Wang/Ma related infighting. I would almost think Wang is best off sitting this fight out, begin a loyal party member, giving his warnings quietly on the inside, wait for Ma to loose in '08, grab power then and force the KMT to really become Taiwan-oriented.

還黨產於民 Return KMT party property to the people

The KMT has a lot of party property that they obtained either from the Japanese government, gave or sold to themselves from the Taiwan provincial government, confiscated from private citizens or used other special privileges to obtain. The more people know about it, and the fact that Lee Teng-hui, Lien Chan and Ma Ying-jeou have all made great effort to sell off as much of it as possible to their friends before a DPP legislative majority or referendum could force them to give it back to the government.

I hope people demand the KMT return all the cash they've made from selling these assets to the national coffers. It will never really replace the original resources including companies and land, but it's all people can hope for.