On Tuesday it was revealed that Paul Sun, Taiwan's former Minister of Agriculture, had hired himself out as an unpaid adviser to a Chinese Communist Party agricultural organization. The response to his conflict of interest was swift and bi-partisanly negative, and rightfully so. The KMT is going to have to crack down hard on people like Sun, or else they fully deserve the charge of, "Sellout!" every time it's leveled at them.
Sun certainly did himself no favors when speaking in his own defense:
“We shouldn’t see agricultural technology as sensitive material; instead, it should be a public asset. China has large stretches of land and a good plant diversity, and can be seen as an extension of Taiwan’s farmlands,” he said.
About 5,900 Taiwanese farmers or businessmen in the farming industry are in China, Sun said.
“If you view it positively, you can see it as helping Taiwanese farmers become more professional. If you view it negatively, then you can make many criticisms. From the positive side, I feel it is something worth promoting,” he said.
Taiwan’s agriculture should not be shut behind closed doors. Instead, people should open their minds to what is out there, he said.
Here he seems to be saying six thousand Taiwanese farmers in China should be helped at the expense of tens of thousands of Taiwanese farmers back in Taiwan. And for that, he deserves every bit of criticism that he gets.
However, there is one part of the story that seems to have been overlooked. After serving as Agriculture Minister, Sun went to work as chairman of Taiwan's Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), which is a non-profit INTERNATIONAL institution. Yes, it receives money from Taiwan's national government. But it also receives money from the Bill Gates foundation and numerous other countries as well.
Now, if the AVRDC was a national institute, this would be an open-and-shut case. Taiwanese taxpayers contribute to fund the center, and they expect Taiwan's agricultural sector to bear the fruits of whatever research goes on there.
But since it's an international research center, the benefits of its research are supposed to be shared globally. Its mission statement isn't, "To help Taiwanese farmers," — its mission statement is, "To alleviate poverty and malnutrition in the developing world through the increased production and consumption of safe vegetables." And in fact, AVRDC has field offices in countries such as Thailand, Tanzania, India, Mali, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Camaroon, Madagasgar, Indonesia, Laos and the Solomon Islands.
There's another conflict-of-interest going on here, that I've just alluded to. As Agriculture Minister, Sun's job was to strengthen Taiwan's agricultural industry. But as chairman of AVRDC, his job is to help strengthen OTHER COUNTRIES' farm industries. Those are two very different sets of hats. The CEO of Monsanto has every right to quit and pursue his life-long dream of becoming the next Johnny Appleseed. Monsanto however, has every right to be concerned that its former Chief Executive Officer may be giving away proprietary information.
Same deal applies here. An investigation should be conducted into Mr. Sun, because during his stint as Ag Minister, he had access to techniques and cultivars developed by national institutions, which were intended to benefit Taiwanese farmers only. If that's what he gave to China, then he's harmed Taiwan greatly. But, if he only gave them techniques and cultivars developed by the AVRDC, then he was only doing his job of diseminating the Center's research to the world.
(And, just to reiterate, whatever the outcome of that investigation, he should still be punished for taking a job in the PRC, creating an obvious conflict of interest.)
