Listen to the voice

Four dead, 17 injured in Sinlaku’s wake
　

HEAVY CONSEQUENCES: Officials were in the process of closing Houfeng Bridge when rushing water brought part of the structure down, along with three vehicles

By Shelley Shan and Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER, WITH CNA
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 1
　

Typhoon Sinlaku, which brought torrential rains to Taiwan from Friday, left four dead, seven missing and 17 injured, the Central Emergency Operation Center said. One man drowned and five were missing after Taichung County’s Houfeng Bridge (后豐橋) collapsed on Sunday.

About 15,950 families were without electricity and agricultural damage was estimated at NT$330 million (US$10 million). Ilan County suffered the most damage at an estimated NT$140 million.

At 8:30pm, the Central Weather Bureau lifted sea and land alerts for Sinlaku, which was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday night.

The bureau still warned residents in Nantou, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung counties of torrential rain.

Rescuers found the body of Lei Yu-chi (雷毓琦), a 23-year-old cable TV engineer, after his car plunged into the river when the Houfeng Bridge collapsed.

Bridge cameras showed that two more vehicles plunged into the water, but no bodies had been found at press time. Police say one of the vehicles was likely a taxi with two passengers and the other a motorcycle with one passenger.
　

The Directorate General of Highways said yesterday that Houfeng Bridge had been listed as needing immediate repair, and work was scheduled to begin on Wednesday next week. NT$1.56 billion has been allocated to the project, the directorate said. The bridge, which connects Houli (后里) and Fengyuan (豐原), is part of Provincial Highway 13.
　

The directorate also said it had sent officials to monitor water levels at the bridge on Sunday afternoon. The officials closed the bridge at 6:50pm after the water level reached a dangerous level. But they were unable to stop two cars that had passed the entrance before the “closure.”

Kaohsiung County’s Chiashian Bridge (甲仙橋) on Provincial Highway 20 also collapsed on Sunday night after a pier tilted.

Following a survey last year, the directorate placed 40 bridges on a priority list for repairs. It planned to complete all repairs by 2013.
　

Chiashian Bridge was not on the list.

In Miaoli County, rescuers dug out the bodies of a married couple buried alive by a mudslide. The couple’s family said the couple had insisted on staying in the area.

In Nantou County, Fenchiu Tunnel (豐丘明隧道) was crushed by a mudslide yesterday, burying four cars.

Mudslides also swamped hotels in the Lushan Hot Springs Area.
　

Kirei Hot Spring Hotel (綺麗大飯店), a seven-story hotel in the area, collapsed.

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday inspected Houfeng Bridge, requesting the Ministry of Transportation and Communications conduct a thorough check of the nation’s dangerous roads and bridges and repair them as soon as possible.

Liu demanded that government agencies complete an investigative report of the incident and determine if any government officials were at fault.

Asked to give a deadline for the report, Liu said rescue and relief work were the government’s priority at the moment.

Liu promised to request funding from the legislature to reconstruct all bridges in the next few years after the ministry presents a priority list.

Liu said the government had reserved budgets for bridges in urgent need of reconstruction in this year’s fiscal budget, adding that the government would propose another NT$5 billion budget for bridge reconstruction in the next fiscal year.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) told the premier that reconstruction of all of the dangerous bridges was expected to be completed in four years.

Kuo Chin-tu (郭進都), a representative in Fengyuan, criticized Taichung County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生), who accompanied Liu on the inspection.

Kuo said Huang should step down to take responsibility for the incident.

“He has served as commissioner for eight years. He cannot tell us he was unaware of [how dangerous the bridge was],” Kuo said.

Earlier yesterday, Liu took inspection trips to typhoon-hit farms in Ilan, promising farmer subsidies.

Liu said agricultural damage in Ilan County amounted to NT$95 million so far, but could go beyond NT$100 million.

He requested that the Council of Agriculture help the farmers deal with the impact of the typhoon.

Legislators across party lines yesterday demanded that the administration immediately rebuild or renovate bridges in bad condition.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Chang Hua-kuan (張花冠) urged the administration to come up with plans and set up dates for rebuilding or renovating 10 bridges deemed dangerous.

Chang said it was pathetic for the government to have put forth a mammoth NT$58.3 billion plan to expand infrastructure, while failing to rebuild or renovate any of the 10 most dangerous bridges.

Chang demanded that Liu resign over the collapse, claiming that the collapse reflected “the truth” about the manner in which the administration has run the country over the past several months, with words but no action.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Shuo-wen (張碩文) said the incident reflected the financial difficulties facing local governments, adding that the central government should tackle the matter immediately.

“Officials rushing to the scene of accidents to express concern in the wake of accidents do not help in terms of solving the deep-rooted problems,” Chang said.

Officials at the Public Construction Commission should get out of their offices to visit problem areas, Chang said, adding that 228 bridges were in need of repair or renovation nationwide.

The Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan County yesterday released large amounts of excessive water, enough to generate 80,000kw/h.

The reservoir began to release water on Friday. The total amount of the overflow for the weekend had reached 400 million cubic meters by yesterday morning — the equivalent of two Shihmen reservoirs.

Authorities said residents in the greater Taoyuan area need not worry about water turbidity, as the typhoon and heavy rains had not affected the area’s clean water supply.

Meanwhile, the latest statistics from the Ministry of Education showed that the typhoon left 266 schools flooded and NT$76.29 million in damage.

Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) said that high schools had suffered the most damage.

Lu said that classes at the flooded schools could be temporarily suspended in consideration of student safety.

The damage caused by Typhoon Sinlaku over the weekend was not limited to schools, farming and fishing areas, as freshwater supply systems were also affected.

A Water Resource Agency report said that the water supply to some 65,000 households in the northern areas of Changhua County had been suspended, as flooding caused by the typhoon damaged a major supply line between Changhua and Taichung counties the previous day.

While working to fix the broken water line, the state-run Taiwan Water Corporation found that the supply to Changhua would not be restored until Thursday, the report said.

Water supplies to other areas were also disrupted, including the Shuangsi Community (雙溪) in Taipei County, Guosing Township (國姓) in Nantou County, some communities in Hsinchu’s Jianshih Township (尖石), as well as in Nantou’s Hsinyi Township (信義), Ilan’s Tungshan (冬山) and Taoyuan’s Dasi Township (大溪), the report said.

In related news, China evacuated about 460,000 people from two eastern provinces as the outer bands of Tropical Storm Sinlaku battered the coast after it pummeled Taiwan.

Heavy rain yesterday lashed eastern and northern Zhejiang, where about 230,000 people have been moved, and northern parts of Fujian, where another 230,000 people left, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing flood control headquarters. Some 30,000 fishing boats were recalled to harbor in Zhejiang.

Sinlaku weakened from a typhoon at 8am yesterday and was about 196km southeast of Wenzhou in Zhejiang and moving north at 5kph, Xinhua cited local weather authorities as saying.

The storm probably won’t make landfall in China, according to a graphic on the center’s Web site. It was heading northeast and its eye was forecast to brush the southern tip of Japan’s Kyushu island later this week. On its current path the storm will pass south of Tokyo.

Sinlaku, the 15th storm of the northwest Pacific cyclone season, is the name of a goddess worshipped on the island of Kosrae in Micronesia, said the Hong Kong Observatory, which lists tropical cyclone names in use in the Pacific.

Listen to the voice

Wang vows probe on liability
　

PRIORITIES: The Control Yuan chief promised to investigate officials responsible for allowing imports of contaminated milk powder and for the Howfeng Bridge disaster
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER WITH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 3

Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien yesterday vowed to prioritize investigations into the liability of government officials in the Chinese toxic milk powder case and the collapse of Howfeng Bridge (后豐大橋).

Speaking on the sidelines of the 187th anniversary celebration of Central America’s independence in Taipei, Wang told reporters he had discussed the milk powder case with Control Yuan member Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), who filed an application yesterday morning to initiate a probe into the role and responsibility of the Department of Health (DOH) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Wang said that he would ask government agencies to reinforce food hygiene control, adding that he hoped the investigation would be concluded as soon as possible to meet public expectations.

Milk powder imported from China’s Sanlu Group raised public concern after the company was recently found to have added a toxic chemical to its product.

The DOH confirmed on Friday that 25 tonnes of the milk powder in 25kg packages were imported into the country in June.

The Straits Exchange Foundation received the information about milk powder contamination via China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait on Friday evening.

Wang said the Control Yuan would also launch a probe into the liability of public officials after the collapse of Howfeng Bridge in Taichung County on Sunday. The bridge collapse because of heavy rains brought by Typhoon Sinlaku caused one death and five to go missing.

Wang said the Control Yuan had launched similar probes in the past, but the collapse of the Howfeng Bridge showed that public officials had not learned their lesson from previous tragedies resulting from natural disasters.

He said the Control Yuan was working hard to carry out its duties and hoped to publicize the results of several investigations early next month. He did not specify which cases he was referring to.

Two dead, 1,253 ill from toxic milk
　

COVER-UP: Reports were emerging that the Beijing authorities had issued instructions that no news of food-related scares be released during the Olympics

AFP AND DPA, BEIJING, WITH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 1

Chinese officials said yesterday that private milk-collecting stations were likely at fault for a rapidly unfolding scandal over tainted infant formula that has left two babies dead and as many as 1,253 ill.

The New Zealand partner to the Chinese company Sanlu at the center of the storm went further, saying the contamination amounted to sabotage.

All 19 people detained so far in a nationwide probe into how the chemical melamine came to contaminate the formula are from the stations, which pick up milk from dairy farmers, the China Daily said.

“It’s unlikely that dairy farmers mixed the industrial chemical melamine in fresh milk,” it quoted Li Changjiang (李長江), who heads the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, as saying.

This was in contrast to initial statements from Sanlu Group, which fingered dairy farmers for the contamination, the paper said.

Xinhua news agency said two brothers in Hebei Province — who are among the detained — were arrested for allegedly selling 3 tonnes of contaminated milk per day from their station.

They allegedly added melamine after Sanlu repeatedly rejected their milk for failing to meet standards, it said, citing Hebei police.

Two babies, both in Gansu Province, had now been confirmed dead after drinking the contaminated milk powder.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra has a 43 percent stake in Sanlu.

Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier said the contamination was the result of third-party sabotage of raw milk supplied to Sanlu.

“In this case we frankly have sabotage of a product,” he said. “Our hearts go out to the parents and the infants who were affected.”

Speaking to New Zealand reporters from Singapore, he said Fonterra had known of the contamination early last month and wanted an immediate recall, but Sanlu had to abide by Chinese rules.

“We together with Sanlu have done everything that we possibly could to get the product off the shelf,” Ferrier said.

The South China Morning Post and the Sydney Morning Herald said the Central Propaganda Department in Beijing had issued instructions to local media on what were not permissible topics for publication during the Olympics.

On Aug. 14, the Herald published a translation of one of the instructions, which read: “All food safety issues, such as cancer-causing mineral water, is off-limits.”

Beijing only acted after interventions by the New Zealand government last week, as local authorities failed to act.

Cheng slams Ma over milk powder
　

By Rich Chang and Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTERS, WITH AGENCIES
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 2
　

Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), the director of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of Culture and Information, told a press conference yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) should apologize and take responsibility for allowing toxic milk power to enter Taiwan.

He said Ma has not denounced China for the poisoned milk power incident. In contrast, US imports of Chinese toys containing lead had been an issue during the US presidential campaign and the Japanese prime minister had demanded China shoulder responsibility for selling frozen dumplings contaminated with pesticide.

Cheng said that the former DPP Cabinet formed a task force to address the safety of imported products and set up a Web site allowing the public to report concerns on the safety of such products.

Ma’s administration had not established such a task force nor had it updated the Web site, he said.

DPP legislative whip Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠) told a separate meeting that the toxic milk power incident was a result of Ma’s diplomatic truce.

She said that because China had barred Taiwan from joining the World Heath Organization (WHO) and Ma’s China-leaning policies led the government to abandon a WHO bid, the international community likely treated the entry of toxic milk power to Taiwan as a “domestic” issue, not an international one.

The Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Commission yesterday said that residents who feel their health may have been harmed by consuming products containing milk powder imported from China could apply for compensation.

The announcement came following the recent discovery that 25 tonnes of milk powder containing the toxic chemical melamine had been exported to Taiwan by the Sanlu Group, China’s largest milk powder producer.

Melamine is a substance used in the production of plastics and fertilizers.

The commission said that according to Taiwan’s consumer protection laws, the Taiwanese importer is legally responsible for the tainted milk powder that it imported into the country.

It said that anyone whose health has been affected by the products can contact the Department of Health or the commission by calling the hotline 1950 to seek compensation.

All applications will be examined and processed in accordance with the law, the commission said.

The Executive Yuan announced over the weekend that the premier has ordered a ban on imports of all Sanlu products from China.

As of Sunday afternoon, the Department of Health (DOH) had tracked down about 70 percent of the 25 tonnes of tainted milk powder, with some of it having already been used in processed coffee and drinks as well as in bread and biscuit production.

“We estimate that at least 50 packs [of milk powder] have already been consumed,” said Hsiao Tung-ming (蕭東銘), acting director of the Bureau of Food Safety.

This number was estimated by determining the time at which the contaminated end products were sold at the local retailers, such as supermarkets, bakeries and local diners.

The majority of the estimated 50 packs were consumed in Hualien, Hsiao said.

Of the 25 tonnes of toxic milk powder from China, packaged into 1,000 packs, 564 have been sealed, two have been used for sampling purposes and 434 have been sold to distributors and manufacturers of semi-finished and finished products such as bread, mooncakes and coffee beverages, Hsiao said.

The bureau emphasized that the contaminated products are to be destroyed and will not be found on the market.

The powder has also been used as an ingredient in Blue Mountain Coffee canned beverages manufactured by Chun Chiao (春喬食品興業公司), 665 cases of which were shipped to Hong Kong in mid-July.

“We have already notified authorities in Hong Kong [of this matter],” Hsiao said.

The bureau also called on Fonterra, the company that imported and sold the powder to distributors nationwide, to take full responsibility for the financial losses and damage to the reputation of distributors and manufacturers.

Consumers who bought products made with the contaminated milk powder can receive refunds from retailers with proof of purchase. Fonterra must then compensate the retailers for their losses.

Information regarding the brands and manufacturers of the contaminated products can found at the DOH official Web site www.doh.gov.tw.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday urged both sides of the Taiwan Strait to craft an institutionalized mechanism for real time reporting on food safety issues in order to better protect public health.

MAC Vice Chairman Fu Dong-cheng (傅棟成) said his council has asked the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) to contact its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), to check on details about the milk powder contamination case to facilitate handling of follow-up issues in Taiwan and to prevent similar cases.

SEF Secretary-General Kao Kong-lian (高孔廉) yesterday said that Ma telephoned him early yesterday morning to enquire about the matter.

Kao said he hoped Bejing would find out what went wrong and mete out punishments to those responsible. He also asked Beijing to help victims in Taiwan seek compensation.

DPP lawmaker defends Chen’s use of state funds
　

COUNTER ATTACK: Chai Trong-rong slammed Ma Ying-jeou for using the same fund for a birthday bash for Lien Chan and to purchase moon cakes
　

By Rich Chang and Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTERS
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 3

A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator yesterday defended former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) right to use part of the “state affairs” fund to sponsor an activity to garner support for a government referendum.

DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said that Chen told prosecutors he had offered Chai NT$10 million (US$300,000) from the “state affairs” fund to sponsor a rally to promote the referendum and a new constitution in Kaohsiung in October 2003.

Chai said prosecutors questioned him as a witness on Friday to confirm Chen’s statement about the referendum. He told them that Chen had contributed NT$10 million for the rally, but he did not know if the money came from the “state affairs” fund.

The legislator said the rally attracted about 200,000 people, adding that he believed its success was instrumental in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) decision to also support the referendum.

He said that if Chen had used the “state affairs” fund to sponsor the rally, it would be a legitimate activity as promoting a referendum was a state affair.

Instead of targeting Chen, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should be condemned and questioned over the legitimacy of using the “state affairs” fund to pay for a birthday party banquet for former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) early this month and gifts for the Mid-Autumn Festival on Sunday.

Chinese Nationalist Party caucus deputy secretary-general Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) disagreed, saying there was nothing wrong with the president using the “state affairs” fund to purchase moon cakes made by economically disadvantaged groups.

She said the public was upset at Chen because the former president allegedly used his “state affairs” fund to cover personal expenditures.

Ma is dismembering the military

Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 8

After World War II and the Cold War, many countries decided to transform their compulsory military systems into all-volunteer forces. Once a national emergency has passed, it makes perfect sense to professionalize the military and avoid relocating manpower from other sectors.

Despite President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) insistence that it has always been his goal to have a professional military, the move toward an all-volunteer army began during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration. The DPP soon realized, however, that if it were to achieve this objective, it would have to make the military as attractive and competitive an employer as the private sector. Without substantially higher salaries, opportunities for advancement and a defense university network, the dream of having a professional military of the size the government wants — up to 200,000 — will be hard to achieve.

The implication is that the military could find itself with the worst of both worlds — manpower and budget cutbacks without the dividends of a professional force. Acknowledging this, the DPP revised its plans for a purely professional military and settled instead for the more modest goal of a semi-volunteer force. In the process, it kept the necessary balance and force level to ensure that defenses did not suffer in the face of the Chinese military’s doctrine of taking Taiwan by force if necessary.

Drunk with illusions of peace or naive in its assessment of Beijing’s intentions, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government does not seem to understand the implications of military cutbacks. While Ma has said he wants a professional military within four to six years, we have yet to see what his government intends to do to attract young Taiwanese who stand to make much more money with far less risk in the private sector. A sense of national duty and pride can serve as an alternative to a high salary, but with the series of cutbacks the KMT government has announced in recent months, it is difficult to imagine how morale within the ranks cannot have been undermined, which will have an impact on the military’s ability to recruit. No one will seek a career in a sector that seems headed for the dustbin.

Estimates show that it would cost billions of NT dollars to professionalize the Taiwanese military. The defense cuts announced by the government make it difficult to imagine that it fully understands the challenges of creating an all-volunteer force.

Another worrying development is the KMT’s announcement over the weekend that it wants to dispose of the Combined Logistics Command, whose role, among other things, is to increase the use of automated information systems, improve the management and production of inventory throughout the military and conduct armament appraisal and testing. It also has a long history of cooperation with the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology in developing various weapons systems, including artillery, small arms and night-vision monitoring systems.

Ditching the command would send yet another message that Taiwan is unwilling to do what it needs to ensure its defense, or that it is on its way to capitulation. Without the proper domestic institutions to develop military equipment, Taiwan’s military would become even more dependent on other countries, but would have less money to acquire those systems.

With every day that passes, our military grows less capable of defending the nation against an opponent that is gaining in strength.

Will the Wild Lilies bloom again?
　

By Jerome Keating
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008, Page 8

‘Think of how some hardcore US Republicans unswervingly hate former US president Bill Clinton and you will have a sense of the KMT’s hatred for Chen. Why? Chen challenged and exposed the anti-democratic nature of the KMT’s one-party state in the trials following the Kaohsiung Incident.’

While hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to show their displeasure with the ineffectual performance and potential betrayal of the country’s sovereignty by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his first 100 days in office, media have also been discussing the alleged “money laundering” by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Chen had wired, via his wife, US$20 million to bank accounts overseas. While it is being investigated as to whether what Chen did qualifies as money laundering, some felt betrayed; some felt vindicated and many others were shocked.

Regardless of the outcome, this exposes how Taiwanese politics is and has been one big, long gravy train.

These events should be a wake-up call to examine the real problem that plagues Taiwan. It is a problem that predates Chen — an age-old Taiwan problem that is human, cultural and historical.

First, the simple human factor. Politicians are no saints and they should not be idolized. Their first inclination is to look out for number one.

In the US, members of Congress have an almost fail-safe retirement package and vote themselves annual raises regardless of their performance. Even with such benefits within the law and a substantial salary, many still turn to fraud and corruption. Human nature rarely becomes more humble or more generous when it gains power.

If this happens in the US, where there is greater transparency with many more checks and balances, then you can be sure that you will find the same and much more in Taiwan, a country that desperately needs the necessary sunshine laws to combat corruption.

Second, the cultural factor. All cultures have backdrops that facilitate perpetuating power and personal gain. In ancient times in the West, rulers promoted a belief in the “divine right” of kings to justify their hold on power.

In Taiwan, Confucianism supports those in power by its system of unchanging hierarchical roles of superiors to subordinates and by promoting unquestioning trust in the benevolence of those in the superior role.

This also creates a culture that craves a cult figure at the top. To preserve such a fantasy, the crimes of past figures like dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung (毛澤東) must be glossed over.

Those in power feel they not only deserve the privilege but are entitled to it for life. All this is antithetical to a democracy where people can be voted out if they fail in their responsibilities.

A culture and society with a sense of fixed and assigned roles leads to an individual’s achievement, advancement and value becoming based more on relationships than performance. Life is not what you know, but who you know.

Guanxi takes precedence over all: Who do you know in the top roles of the food chain?

This becomes the established order of things; and those who profit and have worked the system don’t like it when someone questions it.

With guanxi comes the red envelope. Payment is expected for favors, attention and assistance. Extra help in school — the teacher gets a red envelope. Special attention in a hospital — the doctor gets a red envelope.

Despite changes, everyone has experienced this red envelope system at some point in his or her life. If this pervades at these lower levels of society, it will surely be present in the upper elements of politics.

Add this to the problems of human nature and you have a ready recipe for abuse.

This brings us to the history of how the political gravy train entered Taiwan.

In the late 1940s, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retreated to Taiwan from China, bringing with it all its political baggage. Though China was lost because of unbridled corruption, that same system was transplanted to Taiwan.

Mao had upset the KMT balance, challenged its hierarchy and sent it packing.

Despite this, the KMT still thought it was culturally superior and belonged at the top of the Chinese hierarchy; so began Taiwan’s suffering.

The KMT did not want democracy. It started with human and cultural weaknesses and added another unchanging element — the one-party state replete with a megalomaniac leader bent on creating a cult image.

Taiwan had the longest stretch of martial law in world history.

To preserve its hierarchical one-party state system, rewards, pay-offs and punishments were placed at each and every level. The schools were forced to maintain propagandized versions of KMT history and all printing was tightly monitored so no questionable or contrary ideas could be published.

The government was devoid of transparency and anyone who questioned it was either jailed or eliminated.

Loyalty to the system was bought up and down the hierarchy. One of the greatest abuses that had to be overcome in the struggle for democracy were the KMT’s “iron rice bowl” Legislative and National Assembly seats, which weren’t eliminated until 1992 and then only after the Wild Lily Protest.

Imagine someone elected in 1947 claiming the privilege to hold office for half a century or until death without having to run again, or imagine someone who came in second or third in the 1947 election in China being given the privilege to replace the incumbent member in Taiwan upon his death?

That is only the tip of the iceberg. The guanxi and gravy train systems permeate every corner of Taiwanese politics.

Downstream were the special and discretionary funds for each office that still exist today, a veritable tribute system for all politicians.

Add to this under-the-table deals in military purchases, infrastructure projects and the like and you begin to see the historical reality behind Taiwanese politics. You begin to see how extensive the pay-off system is and how easy it is to accumulate millions of dollars to transfer overseas.

The gravy train extends beyond the political. Two classic examples of bought loyalty are Taiwan’s teachers and military. Their unquestioning loyalty came at the price of being deemed tax-exempt.

This guaranteed support for the KMT’s propaganda machine in the education and military sectors.

Only now, as the country buckles under this large economic burden, are these tax-exempt privileges finally being given up.

Enter now Chen and the blind hatred some KMT supporters have for him. To understand this, think of how some hardcore US Republicans unswervingly hate former US president Bill Clinton and you will have a sense of the KMT’s hatred for Chen. Why? Chen challenged and exposed the anti-democratic nature of the KMT’s one-party state in the trials following the Kaohsiung Incident.

After a power split in the KMT, Chen became the first DPP mayor of Taipei.

In the same way he later had the audacity to take the presidency from the KMT.

Chen upset the established order of KMT superiority, privilege and sense of entitlement. He did this not as a rival KMT aspirant to the throne but as a farm-born DPP Taiwanese from outside the system. It was Mao revisited.

To add insult to injury, Chen now used the system the KMT had set up and profited greatly from it.

Chen is guilty — guilty of using what the KMT created. Caught between their hatred for Chen and the risk of exposing the reality of their system, the KMT has taken the risk that the public will be blind to that greater reality.

Here’s a prediction: After all of the hullabaloo over laundered money and corruption, the only thing that Chen will be found guilty of is transferring undeclared income.

People First Party Chairman James Soong, a breakaway KMT member, was found guilty of the same several times. His fault was that he would not wait his turn in the system and so he was exposed. Soong paid the minimal taxes owed and the scandals faded away.

To be sure, the KMT will try to milk the corruption accusations for all they are worth, but in the end, the KMT system will, ironically, protect Chen. This is not laundered money, this is system money.

Now Chen is even trying to escape paying taxes on the money — as Ma did when he was in the hot seat — but so far Chen does not have a secretary to take the fall for him.

There are naive waifs who say that Taiwan has changed.

“That was the old KMT,” they say.

But that is nonsense. Parts of the system are gone, but the core remains. Another Wild Lily movement is needed against the system and difficult cultural and historical questions must be asked.

Who created the gravy train system? The KMT.

Who profited most under the system? The KMT and later the DPP.

Who hopes that exposing Chen distracts from the system? The KMT.

Who has always controlled the Legislative Yuan and preserved the system? The KMT.

Who is still blocking sunshine bills? The KMT.

Who sells their vote for a mere NT$5,000 or less and preserves the system? The public.

And finally, the most difficult question of all to face: Which party still holds the stolen state assets that make the playing field of Taiwan’s democracy uneven? The KMT.

Is this one-sided? The reality of Taiwan’s history is and has always been one-sided. The sons still profit from the sins of their fathers. Although human nature will never change, culture can be adjusted and history can be revised. Is there a Wild Lily movement out there willing to take all this on?

Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.