On corruption

Taiwan recently made a slight drop in the Transparency International corruption index, ranking 39th on a list of 180 countries (vs. 34th last year).

One thing you often hear from people in Taiwan is that "every politician is going to be corrupt." And of course to some degree this is true, but there seems to be an inadequate public understanding of the current lack of oversight and the frequent conflicts of interests politicians have.

This is where the Sunshine Laws come in, and why they can be very useful -- if they have teeth. And the KMT and Mr. Clean Ma Ying-jeou has been promising to make them a top priority since 2006. Again, some background on these bills from the Taipei Times:

The "sunshine bills" refer to a series of proposed anti-corruption laws, namely, draft laws on the disposition of assets improperly obtained by political parties, a lobbying bill, a bill covering political parties, a statute governing the Ministry of Justice's anti-corruption bureau, amendments to the Act on Property Declaration by Public Servants (公職人員財產申報法), the Legislators' Conduct Act (立法委員行為法) and the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選舉罷免法).
...

The DPP's nine sunshine laws cover more ground than the KMT's four sunshine laws. The DPP's proposals regulate not only public servant exercise of power but also conflicts of interests after retirement or in subsequent employment, the acceptance of political donations and lobbying in the legislature. They are stricter and more sophisticated, and extend to party assets and political donations as well as campaign spending.

So if you have any more informatino on the specific ways the sunshine laws would make things better here, please post in them in the comments section.

Immigrants' rights takes step forward

The Premier is announcing plans to abolish the requirement for foreign brides and grooms of showing NT$420,000 in the bank before they could get permanent residence. All right!

The absurdity of "One China, two interpretations"

Related post: 92 all over again

More details on the 92 consensus

A couple posts back I made this note:

... In May, Global Vision (遠見雜誌) showed nearly 70% support for the "One China, two interpretations" idea when it is defined as follows:

Our constitution states that "One China" is the ROC, while the Communist Party says "One China" is the PRC. Although we have different stances, as long as both sides can respect the other's principle, we can begin cross-strait discussions.

Now just to demonstrate how very insane that formula is, imagine if you put the same question to the Chinese leadership or the Chinese public -- when reversing some key points. Do you think you'd get a positive response?

Our constitution states that "One China" is the PRC, while the Taiwan authorities say "One China" is the ROC. Although we have different stances, as long as both sides can respect the other's principle, we can begin cross-strait discussions.

The question would never be asked, it would be even more absurd on the face of it, and it just goes to show how there is neither parity nor real agreement in this so called consensus.

Not to neglect the details...

I don't want to give the impression I don't care about or am not following the details of the detentions and court cases. But for those kind of details, i think following the papers is the best way to go about it. Doesn't hurt to read both the Taipei Times and China Post (but I only read China Post online, don't ever buy it). And I certainly don't want to ignore Taiwan News!

Taiwanese public opinion

In case you needed some helpful reminders (hint hint, Ma Ying-jeou), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has the annual poll summary online for 2007, which nicely condenses Taiwanese public opinion on the status of Taiwan vis à vis China, independence and unification.

• 70-77% of people believe "Taiwan is an independent soverign country."
• 65% oppose the idea that "Taiwan and China are part of one country and share a common fate."
  
• 80% believe Taiwan's future must be decided by Taiwanese, while 76% oppose the idea that it should be decided by Taiwan and China together.
  
• 85% support a referendum on any sovereignty-related agreements between Taiwan and China.
  
• 78% support having relations with China, but less than 25% can support "One country, two systems" at all.
  

In addition, in May, Global Vision (遠見雜誌) showed nearly 70% support for the "One China, two interpretations" idea when it is defined as follows:

Our constitution states that "One China" is the ROC, while the Communist Party says "One China" is the PRC. Although we have different stances, as long as both sides can respect the other's principle, we can begin cross-strait discussions.

「我國憲法裡的『一個中國』是中華民國，中共主張『一個中國』是中華人民共和國，雖然立場不同，但是如果彼此願意尊重對方的主張，來進行兩岸談判」

This shows the Taiwanese public is pragmatic; it's almost like double think, that they can agree to hold discussions under a "One China" framework while believing Taiwan is sovereign and independent. But it demonstrates their hope for better relations and their unwillingness to let go of their freedom. It also demonstrates how the language of the media can really shape public opinion.

... tails this time.

I posted yesterday on the rhetorical overboard we're now seeing from the Green side as everyone rushes to defend those arrested, especially President Chen. Now for the other side of the coin.

As pretty much everyone in the blogosphere has pointed out recently, the problem isn't that Chen is going to be prosecuted on corruption-related charges. I believe at the end of the day, the trial will be transparent and the evidence should be able to speak for itself.

• Complete lack of due process, with many of the people rounded up being held incommunicado and without charges, including President Chen himself. Chen was in fact being held the night before the prosecutors even had the court approve holding him incommunicado. This is really the most important of all; due process is too vital to be shoved aside in so many cases.
  
• The unevenness of investigations and arrests. It's not just that those arrested have all been higher-level greens; it's that even those blues who are already proven guilty aren't being put in jail, while there's also apparently no investigations going on for Blue country administrators (when we all know they're in one of the best positions to take bribes).
• The "trial by media" occuring as prosecutors and the government leak information to the press, as well as the denial of any possible political motive (Ma himself called his prosecution political back in the day, and is denying that now as well as saying Chen is 'irresponsible' for making such statements).

Maybe the law isn't that important...

But what's new?

Article 25 of the Commercial Port Act states that vessels are required to raise the country’s flag along with the flag of its own country when entering and leaving the nation’s harbors.

The cross-strait agreement on sea links did not comply with Article 25 of the Commercial Port Act as it required vessels to raise only flags of their parent companies and not the flags of Taiwan or China when traversing the routes, Liu Han-ting said.

Going overboard

I am not pleased to see organizations like the Taiwan Society saying we're back in the White Terror period. It's complete hyperbole. Just like labeling every world leader you don't like "the next Hitler," calling a handful of very questionable detentions a return to the White Terror-- or likening the confiscation of flags to martial law-- quickly undermines the truly terrific scale of those events. This is no better than a few years ago when the Pan-blue camp was labeling all sorts of DPP actions as "a Green Terror."

Reminder: In the White Terror, spies for the government were everywhere. You could disappear for speaking your mind to a neighbor. Publications like the Liberty Times would be closed and their editorial board in jail. Executions were common, and the leadership would often arbitrarily increase the severity of a court sentence. The law meant nothing at all. The party dominated everything in life, and joining the KMT was key to moving up in almost any field. The army was the KMT's army (國民黨黨軍). Things are not the same now.

That is not to say I think the detention of these people or confiscation of flags is "no big deal."

Secondly: As Michael Turton points out, the fact that Chen is certainly guilty of at least some crimes does not change the fact that this could be a politically motivated prosecution. But the DPP has somehow managed to get wholly sucked into this. A few weeks ago, everyone in the party was doing their best to ignore him. Now Chen has successfully manipulated more than a few DPP media attention whores into making this cause célèbre into a cause de croisade.

"mutual non-denial?"

Chen beaten by police? No reliable word.

Still no official word, though some stations are leaking information. The hospital says they will report to the court but make nothing public.

New video from Chen Yunlin protests

That include some footage of police actions that may be considered questionable. See them here.

Pop quiz

Did you know... the Assembly and Parade Law still forbids holding protests that promote Communism or Taiwanese Independence?

Fact Check on KMT claim: "DPP repeatedly killed Parade & Assembly Law amendment efforts"

My memory fails me on this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if this claim is true, since the DPP was not too thrilled about the unprecedented 24-hour Oust A-bian protests. The law is draconian and hasn't been amended since 2002, with the previous revision 10 years earlier (the law was originally passed in 1988.

But I thought the best way to test it is to go through the record and do some fact checking. What we want to do is check the 6th Legislative Yuan's record (pre-2008 legislative elections), which will let us know just what happened to these bills. Although there was some discussion on the topic before the Oust A-bian movement, no one cared that much.

During the entire 6th Legislative Yuan, there were a total of four proposed amendments to the parade and assembly law. All were raised between September 2006 and December 2006. The first two were KMT led efforts; the third a DPP/TSU sponsored bill; and the last was a PFP initiative. For simplicities sake, we will refer to them in chronological order as the first, second, third and fourth proposals (actually the opposite of how the picture above displays them).

The first proposal passed first reading and was sent on to the Internal Administrative Committee (內政委員會) and the Ethnic Affairs Committee (民族委員會). It hasn't moved since. The third proposal was sent to and has been stuck in the same committees as the first.

The second proposal was eventually sent back to the Procedural Committee (程序委員會), where it died. The fourth proposal, like the second, found itself sent back to the Procedural Committee.

So now we only need to find out what happened to the first and third proposal. And we find that it was promptly ignored by both sides. There appears to be no attempt by either party during the remainder of the 6th LY or early part of the 7th to review either the DPP or KMT verisons.

[Of course, there is very little oversight of these committee meetings (no video recordings available), so it's difficult to judge the accuracy of this statement. But searches through news in 2006, when you include the committee name, don't show up much; if you look for key words that indicate one party tries to block discussion of legislation (like 杯葛 or 封殺), you get even less, and certainly nothing relevant.]

Most surprisingly in light of KMT claims, it appears the KMT legislators made a promise to make this bill their first priority in the 7th Legislative Yuan if they won power; since they've taken the super majority, the bill has just fallen off their radar.

Further, the DPP would have to stop the committee meeting all together with fights, since the KMT still had control of the committies and their review of legislation.

Conclusion: KMT claims that the DPP killed the amendments to the Assembly And Parade Law are flat out lies, but the DPP also made no greater effort than the KMT to push through amendments.

This reinforces recent student efforts to keep their movement non-partisan, because it goes to show you really can't trust either party to do the right thing on this issue without enough pressure.

Two sentiments ...

... that shouldn't be in conflict.

Busy Legislative Yuan today...

They've made it possible for Chinese students to come study in Taiwan, while amendments to the Parade and Assembly Law have been scheduled to be reviewed on the 19th. Meanwhile, the committee in charge of reviewing those amendments has already said it will be put off until next session (in case you didn't know, the committees only meet half a day, though this tradition is possibly illegal and at the very least, amazingly lazy for guys who always make excuses about not being able to review legislation in time).