Institutionalized Corruption in Taiwan – Can it Be Stopped?

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

Having been involved in the Miramar Resort protest movement, I’ve finally realized that it’s not really Miramar that is the problem – they are just a greedy, amoral construction company that will do whatever they can to make money – the core problem is the Taidong Council – which has enthusiastically and corruptly enabled Miramar and other like-minded companies.

And this is not wild conjecture - they’ve been found to have corrupted the EIA process by both the High Court and the Supreme Court – twice! They’ve also been found to have corruptly issued illegal building permits.

And yet, somehow, they have avoided prosecution for these serious crimes – there hasn’t even been so much as an investigation!

The first time they said, ‘Aw, sorry, there was a problem with the process’, like the process somehow corrupted itself, and then gone ahead and wilfully committed exactly the same crime again. They are clearly acting with no fear of any consequences whatsoever.

It’s common knowledge that gangsters have infiltrated the Taidong Council – everybody knows supposedly – it’s the career path of choice for any serious gangster - but why do we accept it?

And what on earth is the Taidong Prosecutor doing in all of this? He is either complicit, or a mind-bogglingly incompetent – or maybe there’s a third, innocent explanation but i don’t know what it could be.

In Australia, they have what is called a Royal Commission. Other countries call them a Commission of Enquiry. When a major problem is identified, a panel of eminent judges is appointed to conduct a sweeping investigation that typically runs for a year or more. They have wide-ranging powers to interview all players in order to get to the murky bottom of things. Not sure what the equivalent is in Taiwan but I’ve never seen a case crying out more for such a root and branch investigation. They say it was just the process, ok, let’s take a very long, hard look at the process and see if it did just corrupt itself, as claimed – or were there actual people involved? With a ‘New Day’ DPP central government, hopefully the time has arrived for just such a thing.

If it’s not done, it doesn’t matter how many protests we stage to stop corrupt development, or how many Supreme Court cases we win, it will always be like playing ‘whack-a-mole’.

Unless institutionalized corruption can be exposed at its source, those same problems will just keep happening again and again.

Gangsterism is the dark little secret in Taiwan’s cupboard – it’s all about greed for money and power – nothing else. It’s a disaster for the people of Taiwan and it’s a disaster for the environment. Let’s shine a very large light on it and see what cockroaches start scurrying out – then maybe we will get to play a more meaningful game of ‘whack-a-mole’.

2

No, it can’t be stopped. It’s always a game of whack-a-mole, even in countries like Australia, where (as far as I know) corruption is alive and well, but probably called different things; like “economic development”.

Things like Royal Commissions never get to the root of the matter and punish people. What they do is make it incredibly expensive and inconvenient to be corrupt, by forcing corrupt groups to hire lawyers and expend a lot of effort collecting silly documents. Vast amounts of time and money are wasted, and the corrupt are eventually ground down. But rarely does anyone actually go to jail or make recompense for what they’ve done.

All we can ever really do is make corruption less profitable than being honest. It’s pointless trying to get people to be honest on purely moral grounds, because by definition the corrupt have no interest in morals.

3

[quote=“finley”]No, it can’t be stopped…

Things like Royal Commissions never get to the root of the matter and punish people.[/quote]

That’s a rather cynical, pessimistic (and btw, factually wrong) view, which unwittingly plays right into the hands of the perpetrators - ‘It’s all too hard, inquiries never achieve anything, it can’t be stopped, anyway’.
I’ve always assumed that’s a way for apathetuc people to justify their apathy while still getting to indulge their passion for complaining about everything, - which all sounds harmless enough but unfortunately it’s also this ‘do nothing’ attitude that corrupt politicians, police, and judges rely on.

The goal of a major Commission of Inquiry is not necessarily to put everyone in jail. Although that might be satisfying on one level, there is a higher purpose, and that’s to:

  1. Shine a light on a particular issue and expose the mechanics and the extent of it. This gives the public a clearer insight into what has been going on.

  2. Make recommendations which then lead to major reforms. This aims to break down the systemic nature of the problem and prevent it from re-occurring.

Clearly, we are never going to fully eradicate corruption from society, but there are relatively simple measures that can be taken that will both significantly reduce it and open pathways for honest, community-minded people to enter politics, the poice force, and the judiciary, especially on a local level. These simple measures can produce dramatic, far-reaching changes and a better society for all. Yes, reform may fail, that’s possible, but there is no harm in trying.

One thing you can be certain of though is that if you do nothing, nothing will change.

4

We call them tribunals where I come from.
They’ve cost billions and resulted in almost no convictions over the last 20 years. The legal eagles LURVE tribunals as everybody comes out a winner on government largesse.

But they do serve a purpose somewhat in making schemes
More publicly known.

What to do about certain extra corrupt areas of Taiwan such as Taidong or Miaoli?
It’s a difficult question given the role factionalism and gangterism play in national politics.

In the case of Taidong it may take an executive order to go in and just knock the shit out of the hotel, message delivered and millions wasted by private investors. See if president Tsai is up to it.
In countries With more militant populace the building would have been destroyed by now, but that is the flip side of what makes this country such a safe place overall compared to some of its southern neighbors.

Interestingly not all outlying areas of Taiwan are so corruptly managed. It’s my
Impression that Penghu is much better managed and I’m not sure why that is.

5

There are a few sites out there dedicated to exposing people who demand bribes:

ipaidabribe.com/ is India specific, but the idea could be copied to Taiwan. I know many hardcore offenders would probably shrug exposure off, but past a certain level it starts to get embarrassing for corrupt councils. Commisions and tribunals don’t start until there’s a public groundswell.

The next step is secretly recording the monkey business as it goes on, but that takes some guts and initiative.

Those are short term ideas. Long term, it’s about making decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by a central authority, to gradually make governments obsolete. But that takes years or decades. We’ve successfully decentralised the media in the last 15 years. No one can put that back in the bottle. Now we can do the same to do it to finance and governance. Innovative finance sites allow people to move money through new channels, making it harder for gangsters to control and monitor capital flows. It’s a start, I guess.

I wouldn’t place much hope in a political solution. Or I wouldn’t start from that end. It’s the struggle in media and banking that decide what happens. Politicians just act out the results.

You can see how fearful politicians are of open media by the way Beijing responded to that secretly written letter a month ago. I didn’t even see that discussed here.

6

Corruption in Taiwan will stop when the electorate - meaning the average guy on the street - is determined to put an end to it.

But how many people gladly accept invitations to re-election banquets from their lizhang, city councillor or legislator? How many people gladly accept the bonus payments from partisan unions and professional associations (both blue and green) for Moon Festival, Teacher’s Day and CNY?

Corruption exists at every level and when even the small guy can get utility from it, why expect the big guys to be prosecuted for it?
Just as it is the case with traffic deaths and injuries, society must make an effort. If society is ignorant and local people accept the status quo through their complicity, then so be it.

7

[quote=“headhonchoII”]We call them tribunals where I come from.
They’ve cost billions and resulted in almost no convictions over the last 20 years. The legal eagles LURVE tribunals as everybody comes out a winner on government largesse.

But they do serve a purpose somewhat in making schemes
More publicly known.

What to do about certain extra corrupt areas of Taiwan such as Taidong or Miaoli?
It’s a difficult question given the role factionalism and gangterism play in national politics.

In the case of Taidong it may take an executive order to go in and just knock the shit out of the hotel, message delivered and millions wasted by private investors. See if president Tsai is up to it.
In countries With more militant populace the building would have been destroyed by now, but that is the flip side of what makes this country such a safe place overall compared to some of its southern neighbors.

Interestingly not all outlying areas of Taiwan are so corruptly managed. It’s my
Impression that Penghu is much better managed and I’m not sure why that is.[/quote]

Knocking the hotel down, i don’t see as a big problem and i’m fairly confident it will happen - all the stuff is brand spanking new and i am sure there are several companies that would pay for the contract to demolish it if they get to keep the spoils. What worries me more is that demolishing it is just treating the symptom not the cause - the council will just issue several more licenses for different ones to be built next to it - which they have already done in fact and we are fighting those decisions in the courts as well - but we are getting rather sick and tired of this constant battle to make lawmakers and law enforcers abide by the law.

As you correctly point out, corruption is not as rampant in Taiwan as it might appear, and seems to be concentrated in certain local councils - so it can be done - i am not sure how they did it in Peghu, as you said, but i would like to know.

With regard to Tribunals etc putting people in jail, again, i don’t think that has to be the main objective - actually, i am fine with an amnesty - the more important goals are public exposure and institutional reform.

And yes, such wide-ranging, major inquires are expensive - but still not more expensive than doing nothing and continuing to allow a few corporate bigwigs and gangster politicians to siphon up all the money from corrupt land deals and the billions of dollars generated each year from the tour bus trade - and then saying ‘sorry, we don’t have enough left over to put in a rubbish bin at the beach’.

On the positive side, the lawyer for the anti-Miramar activists, Mr Zhan, has recently been appointed assistant minister for the EPA. He is someone who has worked tirelessly, free of charge, and with great effectiveness for many years to protect the east coast. I’ve heard him speak many times - he’s passionate and dedicated. Until now, however, he’s been limited to attacking the problem from the outside, playing whack-a-mole, albeit with terrific skill. But, if someone like him was to spear-head a wide-ranging inquiry into gangsterism in local councils, a subject that he knows better than anyone - if he was given the power to take a crack at opening this can of worms up from the inside, then that would be very, very interesting.

8

[quote=“hsinhai78”]Corruption in Taiwan will stop when the electorate - meaning the average guy on the street - is determined to put an end to it.

But how many people gladly accept invitations to re-election banquets from their lizhang, city councillor or legislator? How many people gladly accept the bonus payments from partisan unions and professional associations (both blue and green) for Moon Festival, Teacher’s Day and CNY?

Corruption exists at every level and when even the small guy can get utility from it, why expect the big guys to be prosecuted for it?
Just as it is the case with traffic deaths and injuries, society must make an effort. If society is ignorant and local people accept the status quo through their complicity, then so be it.[/quote]

Well, i’m a little guy, and i don’t get any utility from it - nor does anyone else around here that i know, and they are making an effort to oppose it. What we do get is destroyed beaches and abysmal government services.

Also, i think you could argue that Tsai Ing Wen’s crushing victory at the last election was a sign that the electorate is waking up - along with a groundswell of other environmental protest movements. What we need at this point is to continue the momentup. As such, a push for a major enquiry into local council corruption would further alert the ‘average guy on the street’ to what’s actually going on and then at least they will have the opportunity to make an informed decision next time they go to the ballot box.

9

I know nothing about the scope of corruption in Taiwan but am curious about the title of this thread. Does the concern about “institutionalized” corruption relate to legalized forms like public campaign contributions (or similar PAC contributions in the US), or about illegal forms which have become so common that they are incorporated as a “cost of doing business” that are rarely prosecuted?

10

Good point ZhengZhou. I hinted at this in my response above. The main difference between ‘civilized’ countries and the rest is that bribes and graft are codified and come with a price list attached. Everyone else has to negotiate on an ad-hoc basis.

I said the task is Sisyphean, not impossible. Stamping on corruption is expensive and time-consuming, and the only people who come out smiling are the lawyers. It can never be stamped out, but you can certainly keep a lid on it.

The initial stages are the most fraught, because the corrupt are usually rich and have wide-ranging contacts. If they have the inclination to hire men with baseball bats or guns, they can do so.

11

It’s more complicated in Taidong’s case. I visited Taidong this last winter and spent a couple of days in Dulan and was able to exchange ideas with a couple Amis from Lachiansi and Lajiancha kapus. I also read a lot of how Aboriginal youths view the election process during this last election.

Problems with Taidong’s voting structures:

  1. Local Han voters are susceptible to vote buying. They often also lack respect for Aboriginal rights to land and natural resources. Most of them are also Hakka and Late immigrants, who tend to vote a certain way because their deep seeded ethnic fears prompts them to vote in a way that in their minds keeps the Holo ethnicity down. When election time comes they just vote

  2. Tight-knit tribal affiliation and identification is not good when it comes to thinking and voting independently. People tend vote for candidates from their own ethnicity, and it means minority ethnicities don’t get represented. It also means it’s way harder to turn down vote buying and bribes. In case of Puyuma and Pangcah Amis, where there is a age caste system, it’s even harder to vote independently when it’s an elder or people from within the same kapa running.

So often people just don’t vote. People from minority ethnicities don’t vote because they feel it’s pointless. People who don’t like the status quo and vote buying practises don’t vote because it’s pointless. Young people who are more inclined to choose independently don’t come home to vote because it’s too far and they’ve been taught it’s pointless.

12

I reckon Taiwanese society has not yet accepted the idea that laws should be enforced. Politicians and businessmen here still enjoy divine rights. Things are changing, it just might take another generation or two for there to be a consensus that the rule of law is more important than any other principle.

Right now there seems to be a kind of a culture war going on. I think most younger Taiwanese get it. Older Taiwanese, not so much.

13

[quote=“antarcticbeech”]I reckon Taiwanese society has not yet accepted the idea that laws should be enforced. Politicians and businessmen here still enjoy divine rights. Things are changing, it just might take another generation or two for there to be a consensus that the rule of law is more important than any other principle.

Right now there seems to be a kind of a culture war going on. I think most younger Taiwanese get it. Older Taiwanese, not so much.[/quote]

I see a lot of young Taiwanese park their scooters on sidewalks, forcing mothers to push their strollers on the road.
The sad reality is that nobody in Taiwan really respects the law. People merely fear the consequences and due to a lack of enforcement, in many cases there are no consequences.

14

That’s because under Chiangs’ dictatorships selective prosecution was used as a way to intimidate and coerce people into falling in line. Whenever the police bust you, if it was not for a political purpose, then the police were just trying to extort bribes and have a quick pay day.

The police didn’t bother doing anything, unless a case receives national attention and there’s pressure coming from above, then everyone scrambles to find a scapegoat. Find a likely enough suspect, then torture to get a confession, that’s the police’s goto technique. It was that way as late as the early 1990s. The police tortured the “suspects” in the Lu Zheng (陸政) abduction case, and even recorded themselves torturing the suspects and talking about how easy it was to get them to say anything they wanted. It was also that way in the Jiang Guoqing (江國慶) case, where Jiang was accuse of raping and killing a five-year old gril. Jiang was executed in 1997. They found the real killer Xu Rongzhou (許榮洲) in the year 2000. They tortured an confession out of Jiang and then killed him.

The average Taiwanese children who grew up before 2000 were taught to fear the police. So when the rule of law is actually enforced, it feels like a punishment rather than justice being served.

The police needs to shake their past images, and to do so they need to become efficient, impartial and professional. Same goes for prosecutors and judges. With the handling of the CSB cases and KMT corruption cases, such as the one by Lin Shiyi, let’s just say they have ways to go to be redeemed in the minds of the public.

15

[quote=“hansioux”]It’s more complicated in Taidong’s case. I visited Taidong this last winter and spent a couple of days in Dulan and was able to exchange ideas with a couple Amis from Lachiansi and Lajiancha kapus. I also read a lot of how Aboriginal youths view the election process during this last election.

Problems with Taidong’s voting structures:

  1. Local Han voters are susceptible to vote buying. They often also lack respect for Aboriginal rights to land and natural resources. Most of them are also Hakka and Late immigrants, who tend to vote a certain way because their deep seeded ethnic fears prompts them to vote in a way that in their minds keeps the Holo ethnicity down. When election time comes they just vote

  2. Tight-knit tribal affiliation and identification is not good when it comes to thinking and voting independently. People tend vote for candidates from their own ethnicity, and it means minority ethnicities don’t get represented. It also means it’s way harder to turn down vote buying and bribes. In case of Puyuma and Pangcah Amis, where there is a age caste system, it’s even harder to vote independently when it’s an elder or people from within the same kapa running.

So often people just don’t vote. People from minority ethnicities don’t vote because they feel it’s pointless. People who don’t like the status quo and vote buying practises don’t vote because it’s pointless. Young people who are more inclined to choose independently don’t come home to vote because it’s too far and they’ve been taught it’s pointless.[/quote]

I may be confusing myself with your reasonableness but that’s a good analysis, and it’s also what keeps a lot of good people from running for public office - which is a pity. And that reinforces the need to sweep a broom through the whole corrupt system.

You also make some great points about the police force culture - i have spoken to a few police who are really decent people, but they are frustrated with the entrenched mentality that you mentioned radiating down from above. One example is the promotion system. Despite a relentless Confucious style exam system, which is supposedly a pathway to advancement in your career, the awarding of these promotions still remains very arbitrary, and if the preferred candidate doesn’t top the culturally weighted exam system then the appointment is justified on the grounds of ‘seniority’.

And the scary thing is that there doesn’t seem to be any oversight. If you do encounter a corrupt police officer or politician, who can you appeal to? Who are they answerable to? No one so far as i can gather. So what if they get caught out from time to time, such as in the Miramar case - if there’s no punishment or consequences whatsoever - of course you will just keep at it.

In defense of Hakka, the ones i seem to meet are very open-minded people and at the vanguard of social change movements…

16

Just for the record, a couple of cases from Taidong. The details are frustratingly sketchy so it would be great if anyone cound add to it, or add other cases from around Taiwan:

  1. 2006, April: Wu Chun-li (吳俊立)
    Elected County Commissioner who was convicted of a land development corruption charge (don’t know which land development or how he got caught) and forced to stand down. However, he then divorced his wife, Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞), in order for her to run in his place - your actual wife can’t run for you if you are a convicted criminal. She won. Wu was never sent to jail and i think he even ran for office again.

  1. Justin Huang (黃健庭)
    Taidong County Magistrate. Charged with accepting bribes from a pharmaceutical company (don’t know which one, or how much, or how he came to be charged) in 2008. Was eventually cleared of corruption charges but found guilty of 'falsifying accounts or financial statements and sentenced to 6 months jail - for which he was able to pay a fine. He is still in office.

17

The current Hualien County leader is doing the exact thing as the first case. He has been caught how many times taking bribes/ corruption list goes on. Is suppose to be going to jail. Yet is still hanging around, he divorced his wife for the same reason. Will ask my wife later about the exact details as can’t remember off top of my head.

Sadly this type of corruption is on every level of government. Its the same for school teachers, they can be caught having sexual relations with students, report it to police/ government and then gets swept under the rug.

In Ruisui we had a group of mafia come through recently trying to threaten and push off the local aborigines off their land to build more mega hotspring hotels. Thankfully they have held there ground and will put up a fight. Sadly it seems to be becoming a more common thing.

18

[quote=“kiwi432”]The current Hualian County leader is doing the exact thing as the first case. He has been caught how many times taking bribes/ corruption list goes on. Is suppose to be going to jail. Yet is still hanging around, he divorced his wife for the same reason. Will ask my wife later about the exact details as can’t remember off top of my head.

Sadly this type of corruption is on every level of government. Its the same for school teachers, they can be caught having sexual relations with students, report it to police/ government and then gets swept under the rug.

In Ruisui we had a group of mafia come through recently trying to threaten and push off the local aborigines off their land to build more mega hotspring hotels. Thankfully they have held there ground and will put up a fight. Sadly it seems to be becoming a more common thing.[/quote]

Yeah, i heard about that guy - Fu Kun-chi, County Chief of Hualien (?) - i think he pioneered the wife divorcing ploy. Please post some more info on him and a picture if you can.

Good to hear that the local aborigines stood their ground. Although it’s becoming more common to plunder traditional lands, it’s also getting more common for the aborigines to push back, and each successive case is feeding off the energy of previous ones.

Again, the real villains of the peace in this are not necessarily the development companies - they are just doing what greedy conglomerates do - the core problem is the corrupt local councilors that solicit bribes and enable them. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, even when they do get caught, there are no real consequences - and if there are no consequences then of course they will just continue doing it.

19

An interesting news story from way back gives an insight into how the BOT scheme was manipulated to include the private appropriation of public land. (These are the same people that were involved in the Miramar Resort development in Taidong - also a BOT deal - and the same family group that was involved in the recent, sensational murder-suicide at a meeting of the brothers at their Nei Hu Headquarters that left three billionaires dead. taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003631979)
(Note: the Chairman of The Miramar Garden’s, Huang Chun-fu, one of the brothers from the Huang clan, and the lead player in the Taidong Miramar, was neither the shooter, nor one of the victims at the Miramar Group meeting - and i am by no way suggesting that he was directly involved in that incident.)

[quote]The Miramar Group, one of Taiwan’s oldest family-run business empires, is hoping to re-enter the hotel market with the brand-new Miramar Garden Taipei.
The group, which ran the former Miramar Hotel on Minchuan East Road, has sunk over NT$800 million in the venture.
“(We) are hoping to revive the Miramar name in the market,” said Linda Chu… the hotel’s general manager.
Luckily for the group, they didn’t need to purchase land. The government is hoping to stimulate the tourist market…
Under the leadership of former Premier Yu Shyi-kun, the Tourism Bureau decided to provide land to private investors for building hotels using the build, operate and transfer (BOT) model. After 50 years, these hotels are required to be returned to the government.
The Miramar Garden Taipei is the first, and so far, only hotel to be awarded state land under this scheme.
“This is a big opportunity,” Chu says.
…The powerful Miramar group — which controls a wide range of businesses ranging from department stores to real estate to petrol stations — was famous for the old Miramar Hotel.
The Miramar Garden Taipei’s chairman is Huang Chun-fu, a second-generation business leader in the Huang clan, which controls the Miramar Group. The new hotel’s investors are the owners of the old Miramar Hotel and Tze-hing Industries, another Miramar-controlled business specializing in oil products, petrol stations and transportation. chinapost.com.tw/business/as … 80%99s.htm [/quote]

The key sentences in all this are:

and

20

Taiwan is still very lawless. There are laws but no enforcement of many of the laws.

Great wealth often leads to great feuds over distribution after the big man dies. Wonder what the latest is on the eVA Air feud. With the son of the second wife kicked out but thinking to sell all his shares and rid himself of the Evergreen empire.