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Who controls whom?
Monday, Aug 30, 2010, Page 8
It would surely come as some relief to Robin Winkler to know that he is safely
mistaken in his diagnosis of what ails Taiwan (¡§Who speaks for the rule of law?¡¨
Aug, 28, p 8).
Winkler¡¦s chastisement of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for undermining
¡§the rule of law¡¨ is at best a superficial analysis and perhaps even a dishonest
one.
The facts to support his argument may be clear to see, but, by framing them in
the context of ¡§the rule of law¡¨ he diffracts the light away from the true
nature of what is happening ¡X this is not simply the behavior of a ¡§rough¡¨
executive, Taiwan is quite literally being invaded.
First, there was not, is not, nor can there ever be, a single example of when
Winkler¡¦s so-called ¡§rule of law¡¨ does not devolve to, or in the more salient
cases degrade to, the rule of men.
For sure, there are ample questions as to the degree to which that may occur,
but the relevant point is that Winkler¡¦s ¡§rule of law¡¨ has always been little
more than a rhetorical flourish promoted by popular ignorance of the status of
what he calls a ¡§fundamental value of Western society.¡¨
It is not and nor does it make any sense to think of it as such. The obvious
question to put to him would be why the overall design of the legal architecture
in the US, which he refers to with such mendacious phrasing, was designed in the
way it was in the first place?
The answer to that question is that the US legal system was designed with the
specific intent of limiting the powers of government and protecting the freedom
of the individual.
This idea was, is and always will be anathema to Chinese (and not only Chinese)
conceptions of society.
The failure of democratic government in Taiwan to prevent the degradation of the
¡§rule of law¡¨ into this sinister ¡§rule of party¡¨ is neither unique, nor should
it really be a surprise. In fact, the US itself furnishes any honest student
with plenty of examples of this trend, both historical and current.
The warping of democratic government in Taiwan may have been exacerbated by the
pre-existing organizational power of the KMT, but even that itself can be fully
explained by an initial design flaw ¡X a central, unified legal architecture that
concentrates political power under a territorial monopoly rather than diffuses
power as far as possible toward the individual.
The last time Taiwan was plunged from the beginnings of Western enlightenment
into the barbarity of two centuries of Chinese darkness came about as the result
of the sudden invasion of Chinese power represented by the forces of Zheng
Chenggong (¾G¦¨¥\)back in 1661.
Today, the weapons of combat are different ¡X legal provisions for land theft
instead of warships and so on ¡X but the nature of what is happening is similar.
Perhaps a better concept for understanding Taiwan¡¦s current problems comes from
the rather unlikely source of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his famous formula:
¡§who, whom?¡¨
MICHAEL FAGAN
Tainan
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