DPP goes for soft underbelly of Ma

Taiwan News reports that the DPP has asked Ma to divest the KMT of its illegally acquired assets.

The Democratic Progressive Party yesterday urged newly elected Kuomintang Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to tackle his party's controversial assets when he takes over the KMT's leadership in August.

Among the many challenges faced by Ma, disposing of the party's improperly obtained assets could be the thorniest. KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) on Sunday estimated the party's assets as being worth more than NT$30 billion.

Ma has carefully cultivated the reputation of a reformer, although that is probably more image than reality. He lacks the kind of administrative skills and backbone a reformer needs. And he is still KMT: I recall when we were living in Neihu and Ma was elected mayor, the brothels in our neighborhood that had been shut down under Chen re-opened under Ma. We knew what he was about then.

The DPP's request essentially pits Ma against his own party and its insiders again. It is interesting to note that while the mainlander base supported Ma, the Party insiders supported Wang, a choice of money over blood, so to speak. While the mainlanders all think the KMT is the mainlander party, the KMT itself has a much tighter focus on grabbing and protecting what it can. The DPP thus hands Ma a neat dilemma: if he does nothing, then his image is tarnished, while if he takes concrete action, he further erodes his poor relationships with party insiders. On the other hand, if senior Party officials continue to keep Ma at a distance, they simply give him an excuse to move against their assets, since he has nothing to lose. Ma at the helm of the KMT promises a whole new era KMT infighting..

The problem of ill-gotten assets is one that has percolated down to the very basis of Taiwan society. The mainlander military villages that the KMT carved out of land it seized from landlords during the agricultural reform program are slowly disappearing to development as land values rise.

A military village for old soldiers who came over with Chiang in 1949.

These villages are filled with the descendents of the old soldiers who came over with Chiang illegally occupying these homes. As new developments go up, the old soldiers are supposed to be guaranteed homes at government expense in the new developments. Many of them have already passed, and their houses (and housing rights) are supposed to be returned to the government. This being Taiwan, however, where large chunks of government housing are illegally occupied with no one saying anything, their children and grandchildren simply keep the homes. It is the children's names who go on lists for the free housing. The result is that many mainlanders are finagling their way onto lists for free homes, paid for by the government. Illegal assets, indeed.

Taiwan