Serious question. Both seem to be rolling in it but have worked for government for most of their adult lives. Any figures or theories?
You mean historical wealth based on the fact most of these leader’s family were rich on the mainland and also took quite a bit with them to Taiwan.
I believe it is the nature of autocratic society to pass down wealth via bloodline. You wonder why they were against communist, who believed in Common Money and Common property.
graft… Little was brought from China, but Taiwan was a wealthy island in 1945 and the KMT positioned Chinese in high government posts to secure the alien regime on taiwan. The Chinese officials put the squeeze on Taiwanese and also skimmed off the top of infrastructure projects. Government officials also asked for zoning favors to buy land at better rates then sell under new zones for a massive profit.Too long a topic for me now.
maowang,
Do you have a source for this claim?
By most historical account most of the “wealth” on Taiwan was depleted by the Japanese for the War effort and their subsequent retreat from the island
You might want to go light on the double shot java maowang.
Taiwan was in fact quite economically vibrant prior to the 1940’s, as it was the principal agricultural base used by Japan. In fact, economic exports per capita were 50% higher in Taiwan than in Japan itself. However after the war ended, the colonial economy designed to export goods for the Japanese war effort inevitably collapsed with it. Coupled with the KMT economnic stranglehold on the island post 1945 to strip even more resources for both personal gain and the broader war against the communists its unsurprising that the economy was in the crapper by 1947. However, by the mid 40’s the infrastructure of the economy itself was heavily mauled by U.S. attacks and after the Japanese left, the economic pillars of the island simply dissappeared. Maowang’s claim that Taiwan was “wealthy” in 1945 is a disingenuous fabrication as war had left the island as ravaged as anywhere else. This is a nothing more than a pitiful attempt to assign blame for all of Taiwan’s post war economic woes solely on the KMT(read mainland Chinese).
As for what the Nationalists managed to take with them from the mainland, Maowang is completly wrong here again. The Nationalists recognized that defeat was inevitable well before the PRC was actually declared in late 1949 and it had become de facto policy to strip away the economic foundations of the RoC so that when the communists did take over their new government would be unstable. RoC taxation on territory it controlled was collected in advance of years and all of the funds at the Nanjing national bank were sent to Taiwan, in addition to the entire RoC national gold reserves.
As for the KMT’s party wealth today, part of it is from legacy assets from the mainland. However Maowang is right in this sense that the bulk of KMT worth is probably from shady real estate acquisitions and corruption while Taiwan was on its course to becoming one of the Asian “Tiger” economies.
cmdjing,
I think I’m going to have to see examples.
Since we agree the initial wealth for the real estate deals came from ROC assests taken from the mainland and most likely in the private ownership of various individuals that came from the mainland. It was not like the land was only traded among the KMT, the land reforms made land ownership available to the public, hence the speculation of the real estate that drove up the prices. The masses had to have some of the wealth distributed to them as well.
I still think historical family wealth or historical family value to accumulate is the reason for the great disparity of wealth on Taiwan. Corruption is more like a leveling field in Taiwan culture when it comes to accumulating wealth in my opinion.
Most of the above posters give good answers, but fail to credit other’s ideas as valid.
How did the Pan-Blue leaders get their money?
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Took it from China or took their money with them When they left China. Jiang Jianguo is supposed to have left China with 500,000 ounces of gold and a lot of foreign currency. He ran a scam before he left that got a lot of mainlanders to part with their foreign currency and gold for ROC money before he left the mainland. It’s in his biography by the guy killed by the bamboo union.
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Taiwan’s wealth, Taiwan had a lot of infrastructure and technological capability before the Nationalists came due to Japanese investment. Even today, the major water lines date from the Japanese occupation and have a leaky pipe rate to prove it(30-50%). The Gaoxiung harbor, Tainan area irrigation works, Taida, Jilung harbor, and the development of the Changhua plain were all accomplished by the Japanese.
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US aid and military aid, the US gave a lot of money to Taiwan and opened its markets to Taiwanese goods. Corruption was endemic.
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Officialdom, with all its perks, was a steady source of wealth. If you couldn’t speak Mandarin, then you couldn’t work for the gov’t. A gov’t position offered tax, educational, housing, and graft oppurtunities that could be easily used and exploited.
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Business connections were also very important. While Taiwanese excelled at factory work, they were often left out of the export/trade agent racket. Large corporations were often generous with gifts, jobs and local projects as they were often gov’t run and funded. Even today, Chinese Petroleum employees laugh(yes, literally it was in the FEER) at gov’t attempts to privatise the company. Legislators are adept at getting jobs as corporate directors at state run corporations due to their position as legislators.
I wouldn’t say that they got their wealth from just one source as Chinese will tend to diversify their sources of income and grab any oppurtunity that presents itself for profit due to the often unstable nature of law enforcement and gov’t.
While any of the above points could be argued, you must realize that they were all used by different gov’t officials at various times and are inclusive of one another and not mutually exclusive.
I’m actually waiting for Maowang’s long version of an answer as he seems to be better informed than I.
Okami
I mean these method were also used by non-pan-Blue members to accumulate wealth as well.
One might as well just look at the wealthiest 5% of Taiwan and do an analysis of how their wealth was accumlated.
Look the DPP has learned all the KMT tricks at this point about land leasing kick back and grafting of public project.
Why don’t we just do an analysis of CSB family and their increase in wealth while in office and how that happened?
Taiwan rise in economy is well documented as a tiger economy. Land reforms, argiculture, and small factories was the start.
I don’t see the point of arguing who is more corrupt, Blue or Green. They are both corrupt on a massive scale. Oh I suppose there is a difference between stealing $1 bil vs. $500 mil 
Their wealth is Taiwan’s wealth that never trickled down to the people. End of story.
This problem isn`t unique to Taiwan. South Korean politicians have been accused and some convicted of amassing fortunes through corrupt means. With the exception of Singapore and the Scandinavian countries, probably every country in the world has this problem to some degree.
[quote]maowang,
Quote:
Taiwan was a wealthy island in 1945
Do you have a source for this claim?
By most historical account most of the “wealth” on Taiwan was depleted by the Japanese for the War effort and their subsequent retreat from the island[/quote]
Any half-decent account fo Taiwan at the time will tell you this. Try Formosa Betrayed for starters. You can find it online.
It’s ridiculous to turn this into a ‘the greens are corrupt too’ thing. The post-war looting by the KMT (and only the KMT - noone else could get in on the deal) was absolutely massive in scale. Sure the KMT kept queezing money out of Taiwan and into party and personal coffers, but nothing comes even close to what went on with KMT occupation.
Completely untrue. Read Formosa Betrayed (and that’s not the only source). Factories were damaged but largely intact. There was still a rice surplus. The Japanese had massive currency and food reserves.
Nothing pitiful about it. It was all the fault of the KMT.
All of Okami’s sources of KMT wealth are accurate.
Add to that:
Post war plundering of Taiwanese resources, bought cheaply (or just ‘confiscated’) in Taiwan and sold for astronmical profit in Shanghai.
Post war printing of money that went straight into provate bank accounts.
Post war seizure of Japanese reserves.
Drug dealing through the Golden Triangle.
Brian
Plunder, drugs and land scams. Of these, I think land zoning scams would have to top the list.
I have a friend whose father was Mayor of San Chung from the late 70’s until the late 80’s. In that time he accumulated enough wealth to buy six skyscrapers in downtown Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.He owns them freehold no partners.He has always been an advisor to LTH, and Lien Chan during their KMT days.These days he is one of six members of Taiwan’s Economic Adivisory Board, yet he doesn’t live in Taiwan and neither do four of the other members.
^^^ See Lin Buo-rong for another example. Re-zoned huge chunks around Tai\chung and made out like a bandit.
Bu Lai En,
Uhm sure that’s why CKS had some the corrupt people shot after he found out.
As for the claim about the land rezoning. Hello, if the land is worthless why did people speculate. Even after the initial sale of the land profits were made on them.
The complaint about land rezoning, although some unfair, is akin to stock IPO. Only the richest investors get to make bids on IPO. Then it goes to the open market. The stock could split, merge, or tank. Is it unfair that only the rich and well connected people have access to IPO? Yes. But that how the system works.
I guess the book by Kerr must be great, cause the DPP are following its instructions line by line now. A little more practice and they even might be good as the KMT doing this.
Read the Arthur Raper Report (1951)
maowang,
You have been citing books that are 50 years old. These aren’t even the times when new people could have generated wealth. You want me to read a paper 6 years after the Japanese hand over.
I already know who the rich people are. The historically weathly Chinese from the mainland and the historically weathly Chinese under Japanese rule.
It not like there was “new wealth” in society making noveau riche people in 1951 on Taiwan.
Why don’t you focus on the 70’s and 80’s on Taiwan and talk about the disparity of old money vs. new money, methods of obtaining wealth, which results are what you see in Taiwan today.
If you bothered to read the fucking report you would see that Taiwan was regarded as a wealthy area that was lightly bombed with industry largely intact. You would also see an early analysis of KMT wealth acquisition in Taiwan. You might also see the beginnings of KMT consolidation of Japanese property and a US observation independent of George Kerr, sponsored by the JCRRA, that supports the hypothesis that Taiwanese were regarded as a non-Chinese people being looted by a weak regime.
If you would read more before you criticize, you wouldn’t sound so fucking stupid.
maowang,
The reason why I have never cared to talk about Kerr’s report was that shortly after reading it became obvious it was not a serious study of the situation. It is a Japanophile rants. It doesn’t talk about the money making scheme or exposes any of Chen Yi crime, just a bunch of hearsay and observations as an outsiders.
What’s there to say about Chen Yi. When things settled down, CKS had him shot.
Would die hard TI supporters also want to claim Chen Yi as a victim of 228 and white terror as well?
AC,
The thing about the zoning scams is that its not speculative, it’s a scam. There is no chance of a project tanking. You buy the land cheaply from an agricultural zone, rezone it industrial or better still residential and shazam you have made a squizillion over night. Then if you own a construction company, you build the housing and sell it off unit by unit doubling your squizillion. The best part about it is you finance the whole thing through a preferential bank loan which you may or may not have to pay back.