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A change is needed
for democracy to develop
By Paul Lin 林保華
As opinion polls have the two leading presidential candidates neck-and-neck,
some big business leaders have came out in strong support of President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九). There is an old Chinese saying that people cannot win against government
officials and this is especially true where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
and Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are involved.
I don’t know what benefits these businesspeople stand to gain by supporting Ma,
but at least they will not be offending him. However, have they considered what
would happen if Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen
(蔡英文) wins the election?
The thing is that they know Tsai would not seek revenge if she is elected. Ma,
however, is different. When Next Magazine recently ran a story saying Evergreen
Group chairman Chang Yung-fa (張榮發) couldn’t be bothered about Ma, Chang rushed
to express his support for Ma to avoid getting into trouble.
If we look at the dodgy information Ma and King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), executive
director of Ma’s re-election campaign office, have used to attack and discredit
Tsai, one can understand the actions of businesspeople with huge investments in
China, because if the KMT and the CCP wanted to hurt their businesses, they
could do so easily. It is therefore little wonder that not a single big business
leader has been willing to show support for Tsai.
Another way of building support for Ma is to scare small investors by saying
that if Tsai were elected, the stock market would drop to 5,800 points. However,
if we look back we see that the index was at its high point of 9,309 on May 20,
2008, Ma’s first day in office. However, half a year later, on Nov. 21, it had
reached its lowest level at 3,955 points.
Ma’s subordinates did not caution small investors to invest carefully, but
instead played up the health of Taiwan’s stock market fundamentals and the
outstanding state of the Chinese economy while encouraging retail investors. At
the same time, four major funds — labor insurance, labor pensions, civil-servant
pensions and postal savings — have been lending shares to foreign investors to
allow them to short the market, thus killing off small retail investors. Had
this not been the case, the KMT would never have been able to earn dividends of
NT$2.9 billion (US$95.6 million) last year despite the bad state of the market.
Perhaps those pro-Ma business leaders say they support him because of his
pro-China policies. However, a comparison of the stock prices of Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co after Ma
came into office show that it is Hon Hai’s share price that has taken a
drubbing. This could be thanks to TSMC chairman and chief executive Morris
Chang’s (張忠謀) “business is business” attitude and the fact that he has made his
neutral stance well known, as well as his morals and conscience when it comes to
business.
Taiwan is often plagued by specious rumors and an inability to tell fact from
fiction. The current Yu Chang Biologics Co controversy is just one example. Tsai
was trying to do something good, but because the company’s shares rose while the
stock market has dropped on Ma’s watch, she is now the target of “score
settling.”
It is not strange for the CCP to do such things, but when these things happen in
Taiwan, a democracy, it places the spotlight on the attitudes and moral
character of those currently in power. For Taiwanese businesspeople to have to
worry about things like this is a stain on Taiwan’s human rights record. The
nation needs another change in political power to prevent our democracy from
being distorted and to allow it to develop normally.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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