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The ‘crimes’ of Nixon
pale against those of Ma
By James Wang 王景弘
The use of the TaiMed Biologics Inc case in the lead-up to the Jan. 14
presidential and legislative elections by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inner
circle has been called Ma’s Watergate. However, it is much more serious than
that.
Ma pretended that he was innocent prior to the election, but the appointment of
Christina Liu (劉憶如) as minister of finance and Lin Yih-shih (林益世) as Cabinet
secretary-general was a blatant attempt to interfere in the judicial process as
it relates to the TaiMed case.
Watergate started with the activities of members of former US president Richard
Nixon’s inner circle arranging a break-in at the Democratic National Committee
headquarters to steal documents. The burglars were caught in the act. Nixon made
the situation worse by trying to halt the investigation and destroy evidence
implicating White House officials. Had he not done so, suspicions about his
involvement might not have been raised, and he might never have been forced to
resign under threat of impeachment.
However, Nixon had then-presidential counsel John Dean who squealed, whereas
Ma’s former secretary Yu Wen (余文), has protected his master.
His attempts to destroy evidence unsuccessful, Nixon later sought to fire
special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who refused to end the investigation. His
insistence that Cox be fired forced the resignations of attorney general Elliot
Richardson and deputy attorney general William Ruckelshaus, in what was later
called the Saturday Night Massacre. It made impeachment a near certainty, had he
not resigned.
In the TaiMed case, members of Ma’s inner circle, including members of the
current Cabinet and senior members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
legislative caucus, conspired to break the law, blatantly altering confidential
documents.
This was a hundred times more serious than the actions that led to the Watergate
scandal. The Democratic Progressive Party produced the original documents to
prove that they had been altered, but once again the Ma machine worked its
wonders. A special investigative team was set up to look into the matter, but
appeared to disregard the forgeries out of hand.
Even though Ma himself was not involved in altering the documents or in
destroying evidence, he was well aware that Liu stood accused of forgery and
that the case was still under investigation, yet he still chose to re-appoint
her and Lin. This suggests he was confident the investigative team would return
a not-guilty verdict.
Watergate had its own heroes — individuals and institutions that did their duty
and held to their convictions about what was right and just. There was “Deep
Throat,” the informant; the Washington Post, which stuck with the investigation;
Cox, who refused to let himself be intimidated by pressure to stop the
investigation; and Richardson and Ruckelshaus, who both resigned rather than
sack Cox, as Nixon had asked them to do. All of these men held firm in the fight
against the abuse of power by the government, maintaining the independence of
the judiciary and the integrity of US democracy.
Ma has not been found guilty of corruption for his role in the alleged forging
of documents by Yu; he has managed to continue as an incompetent president
thanks to alleged forgeries made by Liu; and now that he has been re-elected, he
is attempting to interfere with the independence of the judiciary. He wants to
turn Taiwan into a land where there is no right or wrong, where there is no
fairness or justice.
Shortly after his election victory Ma said more work was needed on judicial
independence. Those who voted for him should perhaps engage in some reflection
of their own.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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