Taiwanese Corruption In Perspective

Been wanting to comment on the China Post's Three cheers for Hugo Chavez editorial for a while now.  Same old "Dictatorship ain't so bad as long as the economy hums along" schtick.  Yeesh.  While I'm not going to reply to the cries of We're not worthy!, I will to this point:

The Venezuela [Chavez] has ruled since 1999 will still be plagued by corruption and cronyism.  But what country is immune to these?  Certainly, Taiwan is not one to cast the first stone.

Taiwan's China Post likes to portray the Republic of China as being a den of corruption under President Chen, but the numbers don't exactly support that characterization.  According to Transparency International, Taiwan is the 34th cleanest government on the face of the earth (tied with Macao and the United Arab Emirates).  Meanwhile, Venezuela ranks 162nd, putting its level of governmental corruption on par with nations like Bangladesh and Cambodia.  (Only 13 out of the 180 countries surveyed were found to be more corrupt than Venezuela.)

Now, being #34 is nothing to brag about, and Taiwan's government certainly has plenty of room for improvement.  But being #34 is a heck of a lot better than being #162, any day of the week.  Or, to put it another way:  if Taiwan were to crack down on its corruption problem and move up 34 places in the rankings, it'd join the company of clean-government winners Finland, Denmark and New Zealand.  And a similar 34-place improvement on the part of Venezuela?  Well, that'd put it just a bit ahead of such corruption-free nations as Iran, Libya and the Philippines.

The Taipei Times made a similar point on Dec 11th:

What matters is that systems of accountability [in Taiwan] are in place to deal with these robber barons.  The fact that 10 ministers have been arrested in less than eight years is proof that the system, though imperfect, is working.

10 ministers arrested in less than 8 years?  That's a lot, and let's not pretend otherwise.  In Venezuela however, no ministers are being arrested (or even being investigated); government auditors instead target a few local officials as the prime subjects of their financial probes.

(Doubtless that's because municipal corruption by mayors BELONGING TO THE OPPOSITION must be the biggest graft problem Venezuela faces.)

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Postscript:  Caracas Chronicles directs its readers to the Miami Herald's coverage of the Suitcase of Money scandal, where it is alleged that Hugo Chavez tried to illegally contribute $800,000 to Argentina's newly-elected president.  Naturally, this jarred my memory about a corruption scandal the China Post used to go on about concerning former Taiwanese president Lee Tung-hui. Story goes that an airplane carrying him was once ordered to leave the U.S. when it was discovered that he was trying to smuggle $17 million in 89 suitcases into the country.  Anyways, that's the story.

Funny thing though - Taiwanese papers seemed to have all the juicy details, but for some reason, there wasn't a PEEP about it from the American press.  Now, you'd think a big story like that - a foreign country's corrupt ex-president tries to launder 17 million dollars of ill-gotten loot in America - why, that'd be big news.  Surely at least ONE of the customs agents involved must have come home that night and said to his wife, "Honey, you wouldn't believe what happened at work today..."

So who does the guy's wife go to?  Not to the local papers - nah, that'd be too easy.  Instead, she places a long distance call.  To tell the press.

New York Times?  Nope.  The Washington Post?  Uh-uh.  Newsweek or Time Magazine?  In your dreams.

No, our American housewife's first choice is to call the China Times, et al.  In Taiwan.  Probably speaks to them in Mandarin.  Which by some miracle, she just HAPPENS to be fluent in.

Uh-huh.

(Gee whiz, the scandal here isn't that Lee Tung-hui tried to launder $17 million - which he didn't.  Or that KMT-affiliated newspapers would plug an obviously fictitious story about a president they hate with a passion.  No, the real scandal is that the Taiwanese educational system apparently produces sizable numbers of people who can't recognize a big, steaming pile of water buffalo poop when it stares them right in the face.)

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UPDATE (Dec 19/07):  Today's Taiwan News featured a story stating that Taiwan would not be included in Transparency International's 2007 survey, because the organization believes that local perceptions of the country's corruption level will be skewed in the run-up to the 2008 elections.

Comments

[Kerim Friedman]

When Taiwanese complain about corruption I like to compare Taiwan to New Jersey. Just Google "new jersey corruption" and you'll get a small taste of what I'm talking about.

[Tim Maddog]

You parenthesized:
- - -
No, the real scandal is that the Taiwanese educational system apparently produces sizable numbers of people who can't recognize a big, steaming pile of water buffalo poop when it stares them right in the face.
- - -

You mean, like telling them that this "map" represents "my country"?:
http://tinyurl.com/2w4xta

The KMT's Confucian education system (and its remnants) are big on that "memorize this, and don't think too much for yourself" model. See also:
http://tinyurl.com/3cy9vl

Both links are to photos in my Flickr album of teaching materials I have had to use.

[The Foreigner]

*
*
That's a bit like Italians teaching their students that England is part of their country. 'Cause it once belonged to the Romans.

[Tim Maddog]

Nice analogy!

[Scott Sommers]

Tim, I am the last person to defend Taiwanese education, but your comment pushes me to the limit. It fact, it's the education version of the corruption problem. Last time I checked, Taiwanese engineers were building the computer hardware that powers the world.

The problems you point to are issues and will be increasingly so in the years to come, but it's just not credible to say that schooling here fails completely.