(China Times via Yahoo! News) Today, senior officials at the National Security Bureau confirmed that they have been paying A-Ching Sao a monthy stipend of NT$20,000 for more than five years. Her status was equivalent to a "special agent" because she was required to "assist and coordinate with the protective service agents." The National Security Bureau Director-General Hsueh Shih-min receives a stipend of NT$29,000, so A-Ching Sao's NT$20,000 is equivalent to that of a lieutenant. In view of the public controversy over the other matter, the president daughter's has quietly reimbursed NT$116,750 to the National Security Bureau. This information was only disclosed today by the National Security Bureau which has discontinued paying the stipend effective this month. President Chen Shui-bian obviously knew about this but decided that he did not need to inform the people directly.
That the maid should have been paid as a security official is probably a good argument for putting her on the government payroll, but paying the money back is the better move, politically. The Blues seemed OK with spending NT$1 billion providing drivers for Chiang Kai-shek's wife for the last three decades of her life. Apparently it's wrong only when Chen does it.
[Taiwan] [Chen Shui-bian]
11 comments:
You are equating Chen with Chiang? What's next, DPP is like the old KMT. Oh wait, never mind.:)
No, I'm showing how silly the whole flap is.
Many people excuse Chen Shui-Bian's acts of corruption by stating how the old KMT used to be much more corrupt than Chen Shui-Bian is. Although this may be true, it certainly does not make Chen Shui-Bian's actions "more" legitimate (as if questioning whether one's actions are "more or less" legitimate is a sensible question in itself) and more forgivable. Thus, comparing the old KMT's acts of corruption to that of Chen Shui-Bian's in an attempt to depict Chen Shui-Bian's actions as less serious and excusable is ludicrous and irrelevant.
*sigh* If it was wrong when Chen did it, then it was wrong when the Chiangs did it. The thing under examination here is the hypocrisy of the side that attacks Chen for "normal" corruption but remains silent about ongoing KMT corruption. Nobody has said a thing about the "legitimacy" of Chen's actions -- that is a red herring you yourself have fished up. If you really believe that corruption is wrong, then I expect to hear you shout from the rooftops about the KMT's stolen assets and the Lafayette scandal. Otherwise, you are simply a raving hypocrite with a dislike of Chen and no knowledge whatsoever about what clean government is. And I know you're not like that, right?
Michael, you need to relax; I can see the foam dripping from your mouth. The KMT did/are doing criminal things. After saying this, now are people allowed to criticize Chen?
When did I ever say people couldn't criticize Chen?
>Many people excuse Chen Shui-Bian's acts of >corruption by stating how the old KMT used to be >much more corrupt than Chen Shui-Bian is. Although this may be true, it certainly does not make Chen Shui-Bian's actions "more" legitimate
Before you begin pointing out the obvious, you really have to examine the circumstances, which are:
1. When the government has been allowed to become so rampantly corrupt---as has been the case since the KMT arrrvied in Taiwan---it may take several decades to clean up the mess. As Michael pointed out, it took several generations to root out cops in LA, Chicago, New York, etc, who were shaking down shopkeepers for free lunches and extortion money.
Out of fairness and evenhandedness, Chen should be judged on his resolve to run as un-corrupt an administration as possible, given the fact that he is awashed in a sea of government employees and servants who have been loyal to the Old KMT guard, and have maintained the corrupt standards and practices passed on to them by the KMT.
2. Corruption is already deeply-rooted and taken for granted among ordinary Taiwanese. A lost wallet in Taiwan would have no chance of being recovered, if it were found by another Taiwanese.
Petty corruption is the standard in Taiwan, whether it be cheating on taxes, paying off bribes and gifts to the local cops and elected official in exchange for a favor, or ripping off iron fencing and railings from city streets for scrap metal.
The standards of corruption-free governance and civic responsibility that one expects in Western countries simply do not apply to most Asian societies, regrettable that may be.
This is not to say that all standards of fair play, responsibility, and accountability have to be jettisoned upon reaching these shores, but that judging the character of a leader involves viewing him against the backdrop of his circumstances.
With Chen, his has always been an uphill battle ever since he was elected, so the lens through which one can view him as accountable requires a wider angle. His KMT in-laws and their physician offspring, however, have never even chosen to struggle.
Again, another biased opinion from Michael Turton.
Stop taxing Taiwan. You came here to teach English, right? I bet people in Taiwan treated you with great hospitality. Now you use the adventage to satisfy your white ego? That's just pathetic.
>Again, another biased opinion from Michael >Turton.
>Stop taxing Taiwan. You came here to teach English, right? I bet people in Taiwan treated you with great hospitality. Now you use the adventage to satisfy your white ego? That's just pathetic.
Can't the same be said of the Chinese who landed in Taiwan after WWII? Stop taxing the Taiwanese. They have treated the Chinese (and their guns) with great hospitality and deference. The Chinese are using their advantage to satisfy their Chinese egos. Now who's pathetic?
> Now who's pathetic?
I'd say Taiwanese people......
To fight and die for Taiwan's independence is one thing, to use TI as a cause to steal is another.
Chen has been the president for more than 6 years and so far has come up with nothing. I say he is the latter.
>> Now who's pathetic?
>I'd say Taiwanese people......
>To fight and die for Taiwan's independence is one thing, to use TI as a cause to steal is another.
Indeed. Government officials who think that they deserve to help themselves to the public coffers simply because they have fought for Taiwan's independence have sunk to the level of the KMT and do not deserve the support of the Taiwanese.
As has been pointed up out earlier, though, public officials have to be judged by the extent that they can overcome and resist a corrupt system (Read the earlier post, and address that point before going any further). If they simply continue on the same path as earlier dictators and stongmen, then they are infected with the same level of corruption. Chen cannot be viewed as being mired in the level of corruption as the Chiangs given the transparency and levels of accountability he has already brought to his current administration.
> Chen has been the president for more than 6 years and so far has come up with nothing. I say he is the latter.
Taiwanese have a long way to go before they can overcome the deleterious effects of a hostile opposition. They are not yet a mature democarcy, so it naturally means that very little can be done when society is so split and partisan. There is too much inertia against them.
Here's another angle to view this. Taiwan, China, and most places in southeast Asia are viewed as untidy and unkempt places by most Westerners. The roads and buildings are arranged in an disordered and disheveled manner. Garbage and debris is regularly tossed into the streets. People who have traveled to Japan and Korea notice the difference in cleanliness between these different groups of societies. Does these mean that Taiwanese will continue to be a dirty and infested place to live?
It takes time to change a people's habits to get them to stop throwing litter into the streets, to maintain their homes and leave them uncluitterred, to take care of their personal hygiene. Taiwanese have been raised knowing little about these habits of cleanliness.
The same is true of China, which still appears to be a backward third-world country when one leaves the showcase cities. Should foreigners now start shaking a finger at people in China, saying: It has been over 60 years since the end of WWII. Why are you Chinese still living in such a state of squalor and filth? Are Chinese so dirty and pathetic?
Why then say it has been 6 years and Chen has accomplished very little? Does it not have to do with the adverse cirumstances of his presidency, just as the cleanliness and level of sanitation in China have to do with the adverse cicumstances of its history?
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