THE Kuomintang (KMT) was once reputed to be among the world’s richest political parties. Its leaders fled mainland China in 1949 with shiploads of loot, including an estimated 138 tonnes of gold and the finest treasures of Beijing’s Forbidden City (see picture). The party then absorbed state property and other government assets that had been handed over by Taiwan’s departing Japanese colonial administrators in 1945. During the Kuomintang’s long single-party rule, which lasted until 1987, it amassed a vast business empire, complete with banks and television stations. So the fact that it is laying off 428 of its 738 employees for lack of money to pay them is, to say the least, a reversal.
At elections in January the independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a majority in Taiwan’s parliament for the first time, as well as the presidency. The DPP, naturally, thinks the KMT’s wealth gives it an unfair advantage in elections. Its staff, before the lay-offs, was five times bigger than the DPP’s. Moreover, the DPP considers the KMT’s wealth illegitimate, in...Continue reading
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