Taiwan's Past Corruption under the KMT was Big Time Corruption

Saturday June 11, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Well it seems that if Taiwan's military under Ma Ying-jeou are not running off to China to be buddy-buddy with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), then their past big time corruption under the KMT is coming back to haunt them.

A Paris Court recently ruled in favor of Taiwan that the anti-corruption clause violation had been violated in the sale of six Lafayette frigates by French defense giant Thales (then known as Thomson-CSF)to Taiwan in 1991.

Bribes and kickbacks in this 2.8 billion US dollar deal seem to be running anywhere from US$590 million to US$730 million which makes the less than US$20 million that Chen Shui-bian is appealing seem like pocket change.

Ironically with all those hundreds of millions of dollars floating around, plus the seeming murder of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng, supposedly going to blow the whistle, there is no one sitting in jail. Andrew Wang an agent of Thomson CSF is accused of murder in the case of Yin, but he has fled Taiwan. Millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts are frozen. Hau Pei-tsun, Premier at the time and 3 admirals have been suspect, but no one is in jail, etc. etc.

The fact that France and Thales have thrown in the towel and are going to pay the fines for their side of the corruption indicates that they see that arguing against this big time corruption is hopeless. But what about Taiwan's side? All this happened in 1991 when the KMT ruled the roost--pre-election of anyone that was non-KMT being elected to the Legislative Yuan etc. etc. And most of the people involved are still around.

Further, in addition to Yin's death, there are seven other related deaths to this case; this is something worthy of a Tom Clancy novel, but it is fact and not fiction. Go to Google and simply type in Lafayette Frigate Scandal, Taiwan for plenty of reading what big time corruption was under the KMT not that long ago and then check how many of those people still live the life of ease in Taiwan today.