From : http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news...&cate_img=49.jpg&cate_rss=news_Society_TAIWAN Taiwan not more corrupt than China, says President Ma Taiwan scores 6.47 to rank eighth from bottom in international corruption survey Taiwan News, Staff Writer Page 1 2009-04-09 12:24 AM President Ma Ying-jeou rejected an international survey yesterday showing that Taiwan was more corrupt than China, while demanding a quicker resolution to major corruption investigations. Taiwan ranked eighth and China ninth in a list of 17 Asian countries rated for corruption by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. in a report entitled Asian Risk Prospects 2009. Ma said Taiwan could not allow its good name as a democracy to be sullied by corruption. "We cannot allow corruption to disgrace Taiwan's democratic achievements, which are the pride of the ethnic Chinese community," he told a news conference. The administration and the judiciary should present a progress report on major cases and offer a plan to improve the situation within three months, Ma said. The president put most of the blame for the apparent increase in corruption on the administration of his predecessor, President Chen Shui-bian, who has been in custody as a suspect in four cases of corruption and money laundering since Dec. 30. The new government nevertheless has a grave responsibility to crack down on corruption, regardless of the rank or affiliation of the suspects, he said. "Clean politics is not a slogan, but an action," he said. It would unforgivable if investigators waited until the corruption affected Taiwan's most basic democratic achievements and core values, Ma said. After the president left the news conference, his spokesman Wang Yu-chi told reporters that Ma's comments were not directed at any specific corruption scandals. Wang denied that Ma wanted prosecutors to speed up the handling of his predecessor's cases. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party said Ma was too quick in blaming Chen for all problems. "Each time Ma is criticized for wrong policies, he will mention Chen, but he should know that wrong policies are even more scary than corruption," said DPP lawmaker Chiu Yi-ying. Ma was not commenting on any case in particular, and wanted the judiciary not to discriminate between suspects of different political backgrounds, according to his spokesman. Reacting to the president's comments, the Ministry of Justice said that for the past year it had been encouraging the central government as well as cities and counties to set up anti-corruption commissions, and working on revisions to anti-corruption regulations for public employees. The ministry echoed Ma in praising last week's approval of an amendment to the Punishment of Corruption Act making it a crime for government officials to hold unexplained wealth. The ministry said it also wanted to strengthen international cooperation and make the government procurement process more transparent. It said it would hand the full package of proposals to the Executive Yuan once it had been completed. The Ministry of National Defense said its own anti-corruption campaign would show results within three months. See related story on Page 5 Asian corruption scores in PERC survey On a scale of zero to 10, zero is the best possible score. 1. Singapore, 1.07 2. Hong Kong, 1.89 3. Australia, 2.40 4. United States, 2.89 5. Japan, 3.99 6. South Korea, 4.64 7. Macau, 5.84 8. China, 6.16 9. Taiwan, 6.47 10. Malaysia, 6.70 11. Philippines, 7.0 12. Vietnam, 7.11 13. India, 7.21 14. Cambodia, 7.25 15. Thailand, 7.63 16. Indonesia, 8.32
Yeah I am surprise too. But this PERC is also a business organization based in HK. I wonder who scrutinize their results. You just can't trust figures nowadays after the financial meltdown. Everything and rating agency figures can be baked..
Beats me. I am wondering too. The whole irony of Ma's statement is that Lee Teng Hui of KMT was also implicated in Chen Shui Pian's present case too. Taiwanese politics is pretty entertaining. Is Ma having amnesia ? Here is an extract from Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Shui-bian#Lee_Teng-hui_connection Lee Teng-hui connection This same day (26 December), in an event related to this case, the Special Investigation Panel of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office announced it would investigate former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who preceded Chen Shui-bian in the presidency of the Republic of China on suspicion of money laundering[83][84]. SIP spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南) held a meeting with reporters. When asked if former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was the accuser as some local media had reported, the prosecutor said “yes”[84][83]. Political reactions to this new accusation soon emerged: Taiwan Solidarity Union Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) slammed Chen Shui-bian for blurring the focus of the case by allegedly accusing Lee (the staunchly pro-independence party’s spiritual leader). "Everyone knows Chen's only tactic left is to blur the focus. I am 200 percent confident in Lee’s integrity,"[83] Lin declared. Later the same day however, one of Chen Shui-bian’s defense attorneys, Shih Yi-lin (石宜琳), said his client never filed any complaints with the prosecutors against Lee[83]. Lee denied the charges on December 21, and said he welcomed investigation. On Friday the 26th, his office declined to comment on the prosecutors' move[84]. On 27 December 2008, former Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Lin Cho-shui lashed out at the former president for not only being a corrupt president, but also a "ratting" president who is seriously plaguing the DPP, Taiwan, and the Taiwan independence movement[85]. Lin declared this in response to press reports that Chen accused Lee Teng-hui of embezzling NT$ 1.6 billion from the national coffers when interrogated by prosecutors of his corruption scandals, but then immediately asked his lawmaker to deny the accusation after prosecutors confirmed that Chen did file the accusation against Lee. Lin said that Lee should face legal prosecution if he was really involved in the corruption scandal as accused by Chen, also adding that if Chen ratted on Lee's embezzlement scandal based on a sense of justice, "why is it okay for him to embezzle a tremendous amount of money, and why is it okay to accuse Lee and then deny the accusation?"[85] “Such a ratting practice by Chen is designed mainly to divert public attention away from his corruption cases,” Lin said[85]. This same day, former President of the Republic of China Lee Teng-hui said that the country's power transfer of 2000 only "provided someone with the opportunity to take bribes and launder money"[86]. He also added that "It is a pity that one man was able to mess up the administration's governance so badly." In another moment of his speech at the annual meeting of the Chiayi chapter of the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association he declared that "what is even more pitiful is that some people continue to support the corrupt politician in defiance of his approaching court trial"[86]. “They (the supporters of Chen Shuibian) cannot tell right from wrong”[87]. He never mentioned the name of Chen in any moment. He also had harsh words for the Ma Ying-jeou administration, concerning the management of the Global financial crisis of 2008[86], also stating that democracy and the human rights conditions in Taiwan have been back pedaling since the 2008 legislative and presidential Kuomintang victories and the transfer of power[87]. Chen has accused Lee of having laundered as much as US$ 51 million through overseas dummy accounts, but Lee has repeatedly denied the allegations. Before boarding a high-speed train to Chiayi, when asked to comment on the money laundering allegations, he declared that “that's laughable stuff”[87].
I think Aus is probably on it because we are pretty much "Asia" so to speak - US.. APEC relationship maybe?
I love it. Comparing Taiwan to China; that is, one sovereign state to another. And who says that Taiwan isn't already independent? LOL... What next? Comparing GuangDong to China? :laugh:
i think that's because there is a huge threat to what happens to u if u are found corrupt or found committing any crime.
Singapore gives huge incentives to government workers to keep them stable, saleries can be up to 1 million dollars
I gotta tell you, that if you want to push up your post counts, this isn't the way to do it. Hitting every thread with a frivolous pattern of "Oh my, Wow, or Awesome!" comments is more than likely going to get you banned instead Just a word of advice, there is also a Specific Thread where forum readers can report the above sort of behavior too. Have a nice day.
I have to agree to this. There are death penalties in Singapore. If government officials find you with any type of weeds, illegal drugs of any sort, or anything that is against the Singaporean law, you are dead, there's no time for you to explain, they would simply not care what you say once they find it on you. The crime rate is low, and that is due to the high salary paid by the government to keep it this way, to a certain degree, I think this is good for a country. Good work! =)
The previous years of DPP rule was full of corruption, project after project went into enriching crones and large corporations knew that to get their way they had to line the pockets of the politicians to get passed the social political maze of either leaning pro-green or pro-blue, with the pro-green DPP faction in power any affiliations to the blue faction would lead to being shunned from projects and media outlets license revoked.. with the KMT under Ma the drive is to not be pro-blue or pro-green and reach a consensus that reaches across all political affiliations as to reduce the infighting and factionalization that plagued taiwan politics for 2 decades, being fair and factual to stop corruption on both sides of the political spectrum is the strategy taken to avoid losing support from voters that would have voted towards a pro-green (pre 1949 native hoklo stance) based on social allegiance factors rather than a ROC identity. The last decade has seen corruption in the mainland come under real attempts from the government to stop and reduce the spread as it is still a one party system and thus the corruption issue is a serious problem to it's legitimacy, on the other hand in taiwan with the economical and social problems and infighting the problem of corruption has been left to grow unchecked in the environment of instability... being a communist or democratic government has no real bearing as a prerequisite to being either more or less corrupt, it needs to have a powerful and neutral legal system that can tackle corruption without political or special interest interference.
