|
Taiwan¡¦s baggage of
bought loyalty
By Jerome Keating
The past is past and cannot be changed; no one denies that. In the same vein,
what happened, has happened, it is done and gone; do not cry over it. That is
true also. However, such dicta are not the whole picture.
Accepting the fact that the past has happened does not mean that the baggage and
unwanted residue of that past must also be accepted. That is totally different
and something that can be rectified. Hence Taiwan¡¦s current labor and pension
fund discussions. The naive may say that the one-party state of the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) is a thing of the past, so stop railing against it. They
fail to grasp that the railing is not against what was, but rather it is against
the unwanted baggage of that past that still remains. Such inequities need not
be perpetuated forever.
On the one hand we have the Labor Insurance Fund and Labor Pension Fund, funds
that apply to the average worker. According to estimates these funds will have a
deficit by 2017 and be bankrupt by 2027. The average worker with a lump sum
retirement and no year-end bonus is in danger. On the other hand we have a
select group: the military, public school teachers and civil servants who have a
different pension plan, one that can include a guaranteed monthly income of
approximately 75 percent of their previous earnings, a guaranteed 18 percent
annual interest on select deposits and additional annual bonuses.
This group has no fear of bankruptcy for they have a government guarantee that
it will pick up any deficit. Is that equality?
What then brought about this apparent disparity? The roots of this special
privilege go back to the KMT¡¦s one-party state in Taiwan. They go all the way
back to the post-World War II years when Chiang Kai-shek (½±¤¶¥Û) and his
government-in-exile officially came to Taiwan as a diaspora on the run in 1949.
The KMT laid claim to Taiwan, a claim, that ironically remains in complex limbo
since the US repeatedly maintains that its official position on just who Japan
was to hand over Taiwan to after the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952 remains
¡§undecided.¡¨
Regardless of this, when the KMT relocated in 1949, it brought with it from
China its national flag, a Constitution, a raft of government departments and
officials, and imposed all of them along with its one-party-state on Taiwanese.
Incorporated in this imposition is what can be termed the numerous trickle-down
¡§loyalist privileges.¡¨ It is the annual bonus element of these particular
privileges for the military, civil servants and public school teachers that is
now being discussed.
When a government in exile imposes itself as a one-party state on a much larger
group of people, that government needs to ensure the loyalty of at least three
groups essential to preserving its rule. Those groups are: the military (needed
to quell dissent), civil servants (needed to keep government functioning) and
teachers (needed to indoctrinate the young in the values of the state). This
bought loyalty provides the backdrop against which the contrast in retirement
privileges must be seen. Unable to give members of these three groups high
salaries, the one-party state government can, in lieu of their lower wages,
promise them a set of guaranteed retirement benefits that others would not have.
Of course, these three groups were not the only ones with paid-for privileges.
These are all part and parcel of any one-party state¡¦s trickle down system of
privileges and perks beginning at the top and working its way down to the
lowest-ranking civil servant.
The man at the top, Chiang in addition to the presidential palace and monies,
had about 30 specially built guesthouses for his tours of the small island of
Taiwan. About 380 members of the Legislative Yuan (as of 1950) as well as more
than 700 members of the National Assembly and numerous others, had their
lifetime ¡§iron rice bowl¡¨ positions.
The full extent of all such guaranteed iron rice bowls has yet to be fully
documented; the surviving 1947 elected legislators lost their iron rice bowl
privileges with the free elections and their ¡§forced¡¨ but well-rewarded
retirement in 1992. The 1947 National Assembly members faced new elections in
1991 and the assembly, being redundant, was eventually disbanded in 2005.
Thus, when current civil servants and those in the military question why their
privileges and benefits, which have been in existence for ¡§more than 40 years,¡¨
are suddenly being taken away or reduced, what they are really asking is why
they cannot still maintain their share of the days of a one-party state. They
have a point; there remain a lot more privileges that have yet to be examined.
For example, how can people like former vice president Lien Chan (³s¾Ô) and many
other government officials make more money in retirement than when they were
actually working? Why can some KMT party members count their years of party
membership as counting toward the required number of years of service for civil
service retirement benefits? Most important of all, why does one party, the KMT,
have wealth and profits estimated at at least 700 times more than all other
parties combined? These privileges will only be rectified when Taiwan gets a
Legislative Yuan not controlled by the KMT.
Premier Sean Chen has bought a little time in trying to head off the growing
crisis. For one year, he has restricted the year-end bonuses to the needy (those
with an income of under NTS$20,000 a month) and to those military families
without support. Ironically, such cases make up only a 10th of all receiving
such benefits. Nonetheless, the premier has avoided the real issue, rectifying
the baggage of the one-party state days. This is a reality far beyond the
retirement benefits of the three select groups. The KMT¡¦s one-party state days
may be over, but the baggage, privileges and aftereffects of bought loyalties
remain.
Jerome Keating is a commentator based in Taiwan.
|
