Chen pleads not guilty at court hearing
　

‘BIASED’: Prosecutors have information indicating that Lee Teng-hui received a donation from the Chinese Communist Party but have not acted on it, Chen said

By Jimmy Chuang
STAFF REPORTER, WITH AGENCIES
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009, Page 1

A frail former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday pleaded not guilty to corruption charges in a pretrial hearing held at a Taipei court.

“I am not guilty because I have not committed any crimes,” he told a panel of three judges at the Taipei District Court, when asked whether he admitted to charges of embezzling and accepting bribes.

Chen is charged with pocketing some NT$1.5 billion (US$44 million), including a bribe of US$9 million in a land deal and money from his presidential “state affairs fund.” He is also charged with money laundering, forgery and influence peddling.

Yesterday’s hearing concerned the embezzlement and bribery charges.

Chen, brought to court in handcuffs from the Taipei Detention Center, told the court that testimony against him by several witnesses had been tampered with and demanded it be thrown out.

He also questioned the impartiality of Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) and three prosecutors involved in the case.

“I always respected the judicial system but I can’t trust it any more. Prosecutors have stooped so low as to become political tools ... some intervened in political and partisan affairs,” he told the judges.

“Nobody can trust the way prosecutors conduct their interrogations as they seem biased or have a personal agenda,” he said, referring to testimony concerning the land deal.

Chen said if the judicial system were neutral, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) would be questioned for alleged wrongdoings.

Chen said Special Investigation Panel (SIP) Prosecutor Chu Chao-liang (朱朝亮) told him and his wife during a raid on Aug. 16 that he had information indicating that Lee and the Taiwan Solidarity Union had received a donation of between NT$200 million and NT$300 million from the Chinese Communist Party.

Lee also allegedly laundered money through dummy accounts, Chen said, but the SIP decided not to investigate. He did not elaborate.

Chen also said that SIP Prosecutor Wu Wen-chung (吳文忠) had prevented a scandal involving an alleged DVD recording of Ma and former radio DJ Charles Mack having intimate relations.

Mack, a US citizen, was repatriated on Feb. 6, 2004, after law enforcement officers claimed that he had intimate relations after being diagnosed with syphilis and had not told his partners.

Mack had been married to Chang Wei-chin (張瑋津), who claimed she was a good friend of Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍).

Chen said Chang had a DVD of Mack and Ma having intimate relations and intended to use the DVD to ruin Ma’s presidential prospects last year. Wu Wen-chung used his position as a prosecutor to stop Chang, Chen said.

The court ordered a short recess when a feeble-looking Chen, who had stopped eating for four days ahead of the trial, said he was feeling unwell.

Chen’s lawyers told reporters before the court session that they suspected prosecutors of tampering with testimony and threatened to sue those involved for encouraging perjury and abuse of authority.

The lawyers said they would also apply to the High Court later yesterday for Chen’s case to be moved to another court to ensure a fair hearing.

Two Chen supporters who managed to obtain court passes to yesterday’s hearing shouted “injustice” and “Long live Chen Shui-bian” in the middle of the proceedings before being expelled by the court.

Separately, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) yesterday dismissed Chen’s allegation that Ma and Mack had had intimate relations.

“Mr Ma is very masculine. It is impossible for him to have had an affair with this guy nicknamed ‘Chocolate,’” Chang said.

KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) accused Chen of trying to ruin Ma’s reputation.

Liu promises reshuffle if Cabinet misses GDP goal
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009, Page 1

The Cabinet will be reshuffled early next year if the nation’s economy shrinks more than 5 percent this year in spite of the government’s plan to boost investment in infrastructure, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday.

During a question-and-answer session with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), the premier said the government’s special four-year budget request totaling NT$500 billion (US$14.35 billion) was expected to help improve the nation’s economic growth by 1.02 percentage points each year.

Implementing the budget proposal could keep economic growth for this year at the expected minus 2.97 percent, the premier said.

On Wednesday last week, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said the economy contracted a record 8.36 percent in the final quarter of last year and was expected to shrink by a record 2.97 percent this year.

“If the plan completely fails, we will shoulder all responsibility for the failure because the plan was proposed by the Cabinet,” Liu said. “I think President Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] would not accept such results. If we fail to achieve the goal we set, I know what I should do.”

In a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) later yesterday, Liu said the Cabinet had continually improved its execution of policies.

He declined to say which Cabinet official he had the most confidence in.

Basing society on service, humanity
　

By Lii Ding-Tzann 李丁讚
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009, Page 8

While the financial crisis continues to take its toll and unemployment rises, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has failed to work out concrete countermeasures. Obviously, the government lacks a vision for Taiwan and has never thought of using the economic crisis as a chance to thoroughly change the fundamental structure of Taiwanese society and push for social transformation.

Social transformation is not merely a matter of economic or industrial change. Although industrial transformation is important given the nation’s situation, solutions depend not only on infrastructure, effective manpower, social connections, creativity and imagination. A culture of respect, trust and cooperation as well as civilized behavior are also key to a successful transformation. How to refine services throughout society and build a service society is key to developing a high-quality humane society.

By “service society” I mean a society that provides commercial and non-commercial services, including educational, social, medical, cultural and environmental services.

The government should use the opportunity offered by the unemployment situation to extensively increase manpower for the aforementioned non-commercial services so that these services can be further developed and refined, which could lead people to treat one another in a more civilized and humane manner. This would also give us the ability to create a better cultural and ecological environment.

Educational services provide a good example. From kindergarten through high school, students are taught in large-size classes. A teacher with a class of between 40 and 50 students cannot engage in meaningful interaction with each student. But education is intrinsically a very personal service. As students have different talents and interests, a good teacher should provide each student with guidance and assistance based on their individual aptitude. Only then can students develop their own identities, interests and skills to achieve self-realization. This is the basis of high-quality societies as well as a fundamental educational principle. However, large-sized classes have had a severe negative impact on the quality of education and manpower in Taiwan.

The decreasing birth rate could have reduced class sizes, but educational authorities appear to have failed to recognize the serious problem posed by large-size classes and decided instead to reduce the number of classes rather than the number of students. As a result, class sizes cannot be reduced, nor can education be personalized. In particular, with unemployment on the rise, the measures proposed by the educational authorities are only aimed at improving hardware or increasing the number of temporary teachers without addressing the real issue and trying to change the entire educational structure. It is a great pity. I estimate that at least 80,000 more teachers would be needed for kindergarten through 12th grade education before it could meet the educational quality standards of advanced countries.

As far as social services are concerned, rapid social change is causing the disintegration of the extended family and increasing poverty. The government must actively extend help. But Taiwan’s social security system is incomplete.

There is such a shortage of social workers, various social relief measures and medical personnel — especially nurses — that the quality of social services cannot be improved. When the disadvantaged are not given proper respect and their dignity is trampled, the humane qualities of society immediately decline and social relations gradually become distorted. The government needs to greatly increase various social services and manpower to improve the situation.

At last, cultural and environmental services also deserve attention. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the government of then-US president Franklin Roosevelt hired a large number of personnel for cultural and historical services. This not only expanded domestic demand, but also managed to preserve a great deal of valuable cultural and historical information.

In Taiwan, there are many passionate and talented people who have lots of ideas about how to improve local culture and public affairs. The government should provide these people with the resources they need so they can take the initiative to start a range of cultural ventures or services and in turn improve local cultural standards.

The service industry made up 71 percent of Taiwan’s GDP last year, but only used 58 percent of Taiwan’s labor force. This shows that Taiwan is short of manpower in the service industry, which also explains why the quality of services has not improved.

Service is a mutual interaction between people as opposed to treating people as a “product.” Hopefully the Ma administration will take advantage of the opportunity to fundamentally change the service structure of Taiwanese society and make Taiwan a service-based country.

Lii Ding-tzann is a professor at National Tsing Hua University’s Institute of Sociology.

Government policy helps businesses, not people
　

By Lu Chun-wei 盧俊偉
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009, Page 8

Capital for Japanese or German enterprises comes mostly from the banking system. During economic downturns in the past, the governments of both countries have supported the banking system, the banks supported business, and business supported their employees.

The result has been that both industry and employment were stabilized.

Since between 60 percent and 70 percent of the capital of Taiwanese companies also comes from the banking system, it only seems appropriate for us to copy German and Japanese policies and the government has pushed hard for this in recent months.

However, in duplicating this policy, the government may have ignored differences between the countries.

The Japanese or German company structure is based on large enterprises and both have a deep culture of social solidarity. This is also why during economic downturns — with support from the government and banks seeking social stability and harmony — large Japanese and German enterprises have been able to keep larger numbers of employees.

Taiwan lacks the necessary preconditions for implementing a similar policy because most companies are small or medium-sized enterprises and we lack a culture of social solidarity. In addition, the government’s attempts at implementing the policy have been seriously flawed.

Ever since the launch of the policy, private banks have criticized the government for interfering in the lending market, and the small and medium enterprises that are unable to obtain loans or who experience liquidity problems have criticized the government for ruling the country with empty talk.

Labor groups criticized the government for only caring about business and disregarding employees on unpaid leave or who have lost their jobs. Then, the government launched another policy granting preferential loan terms to enterprises that do not lay off employees. So the government is now offering preferential loan terms to businesses to not lay off employees before the issue of why those companies are having problems raising capital from banks in the first place has been resolved.

This once again highlights the short-term nature of government policy and the lack of any attempt to understand the basic principles of policy making.

Let’s use the policy of providing preferential loan terms as an example. What has happened is the government is actually turning social welfare funds aimed at helping the unemployed into subsidies for businesses to not lay off their employees.

The difference is that welfare funds make the unemployed the direct beneficiaries; while the latter diminishes them to indirect beneficiaries in the hope that businesses will not fire them.

Although companies have social responsibilities, for-profit business organizations are not charity groups. Since the government only requests that they not lay off employees but does not ask for promises to not cut salaries, cost-oriented small and medium enterprises may force even more employees to take unpaid leave. It could also cause unscrupulous employers whose businesses are still doing OK to use unpaid leave or force employees to resign and then cut salaries before hiring new staff.

These situations are playing out all around us at the moment. I cannot help but wonder who the government’s policies are meant to support.

Lu Chun-wei is a research fellow at Taiwan Thinktank.