Taiwanese Warren Commission?

When you stop to think about it, there are a number of ways in which America and Taiwan are alike:

• America likes baseball. Taiwan likes baseball.
• America’s got 7-11s.  So does Taiwan.  In spades. 
• America watches NBA. Taiwan loves the Lakers, too.

But that’s not all:  You know America’s JFK assassination conspiracy theorists?  Well, Taiwan has something similar, only its brand attempts to prove that President Chen Shway-Bian was somehow behind the March 19th, 2004 attempt on his own life in order to obtain sympathy votes. *

(That’s right, President Chen had himself shot so that he could steal the election.  How come Karl Rove never thought of that?)

There’s another important difference, too.  In America, if someone "proves" his theory surrounding the death of JFK, there is no practical consequence.  His suspect is probably dead, or least, too old to still be involved in politics.  In Taiwan though, if someone could actually prove that Chen faked his own shooting for selfish political motives, then they’d instantly have grounds for removing Chen from the presidency.

What that means is that here, wild-eyed discussions aren’t confined to kooks who obsessively replay assassination-related videos in darkened living rooms.  There’s a very real political incentive for rational politicians to spout these outlandish theories with a straight face, because doing so might someday help them topple their political foe.  But even if the President’s enemies fail at that, they can still weaken his legitimacy and divert the national conversation from other, more pressing issues.

Front page news in Wednesday’s papers was the formation of a new government commission by the KMT and its allies to discover the "truth" about the assassination.  The China Post says this commission is to be similar to an American special counsel, but that isn’t quite accurate because of the questionable legality of the Taiwanese variant.  According to Taiwan’s constitution, there is a branch of government (the Control Yuan) whose sole purpose is to investigate wrongdoing by the other branches.  It seems to me that with the creation of this commission, the legislature has fully usurped the responsibilities of an entire branch of government.

At this point, you might be asking yourself what the Control Yuan has to say about having its powers stolen like that.  The answer is: Not much.  The Control Yuan has been vacant for over a year now, because the legislature has steadfastly rejected all of President Chen’s nominees for that body.

Which makes all of this a pretty naked power grab.  The KMT-dominated legislature refused to hire Taiwan a watchman, and then unilaterally decided to take that job for itself.

As I’ve illustrated, there are real constitutional grounds for striking this commission down, which is what happened to its previous incarnation.  If that fails, Chen’s political enemies will use their majority on the commission to float their absurd theories, and then decide which narrative that they like best.  Chen’s supporters will be permitted to write a dissent, but the official finding is already pre-ordained.  The President had himself shot to win the election ‘coz the KMT says he did.  What better proof could there be than that?

Once the commission’s foregone conclusion is delivered, I wonder about the next step, though.  The KMT doesn’t have the numbers in the legislature for impeachment, and members of the President’s party will undoubtably recognize the commission’s findings for what they are and refuse to cross the aisle.  With the "truth" in their hands, could the KMT approach the Supreme Court and demand Chen’s removal?  I don’t pretend to know the answer.  But I DO get the sense that the KMT would love to use the "truth" as an excuse for street thuggery, with an eye on overthrowing the government.  Last week, a columnist for the China Post wrote:

[The Chen administration will] either bring Taiwan further down the road of no return during the next two years, or it will precipitate large-scale violent and even bloody anti-government demonstrations to demand a change of course. **

In short, do as the KMT says, or there’ll be…trouble.

* Click here for my brief summary of the attempted assassination.  And here’s a Taipei Times editorial that makes the rather obvious observation that there are easier ways of rigging an election than having yourself shot in the abdomen.

** From "Chen will still pursue his own course" by Dr. William Fang from the Apr 7th edition of the China Post.  Sorry, I can’t find the link.