What To Do When Your President Is a Criminal?
How Taiwan Survived Their First Opposition President
Though democratic Taiwan is often portrayed comparatively as the democratic neighbor to the authoritarian and covetous China, democracy in Taiwan is a somewhat recent phenomenon. Although Taiwan has ostensibly had a constitution and a president since 1947, it was ruled by a single party under martial law, with opposition parties outlawed. But during the late 1980s, the island nation liberalized and democratized.
It began when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed illegally in 1986. Rather than suppress it, the President of the ruling Kuomingtang (KMT) party, Chiang Ching-kuo, announced that he would allow the formation of this new party. A year later, in 1987, he announced the end of martial law in the country. After Chiang died in 1988, his Vice President, Lee Teng-hui, continued democratization. In 1991 he abolished the Temporary Provisions Against the Communist Rebellion, constitutional provisions effectively nullifying all other aspects of the country’s constitution and allowing the government essentially unchecked power. They were replaced with the Additional Articles of the Constitution, which set up democratic elections for the position of the President and fair elections for the country’s legislative body, the Yuan.
Taiwan held its first fully democratic elections in 1996, which Lee won somewhat handily. The KMT had been overseeing rapid economic development, the formation of a strong middle class, and general economic prosperity for the people of Taiwan. By leveraging this good will and political capital into democratization, they ensured their continued relevance and political power in the nation’s new democratic system.
But the test of a new democracy isn’t if the ruling party can hold free and fair elections. They must also be willing to concede power based on the results of those elections. This test came in Taiwan in the year 2000, when DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian won the Presidency. The KMT still held a majority in the Legislative Yuan and the election was a close one, so the KMT was still a powerful party with good electoral prospects for the future. So the party decided to concede, knowing that they did not lose completely, and that they had a real chance of winning again. So Taiwan survived both tests of democracy. They had free and fair elections, and then the ruling party conceded when they lost.
But a third, unexpected test awaited the country. One that political scientists don’t apply generically to all democracies. During his election campaigns and his tenure as President, Chen had laundered money and forged government documents. He, his wife, his son and daughter in law, and his brother and law had all wired millions of dollars in donations from his campaign and from government projects into Swiss bank accounts throughout his presidency.
In 2008, Ma Jing-jeou won the presidential election, and once Chen was out, he was arrested on money laundering and corruption charges. Initially, he apologized and resigned from the DPP, but still pleaded not guilty to the charges. He claimed that the charges were politically motivated and went so far as to stage a hunger strike while awaiting his sentencing. After the seemingly successful democratization of the country, after free and fair elections and even the concession to an opposition president, what would the Taiwanese people think of this turn of events? The legitimacy of the whole enterprise could come crashing down if people believed that the KMT was just going to jail opposition politicians that were too pro-independence.
But they didn’t. There were protests, and many Taiwanese worried that the decision to arrest him was at least partly politically motivated, but most Taiwanese also believed that Chen was guilty. Ma was re-elected in 2012. Then in 2016, power changed hands peacefully once again when Tsai Ing-wen won for the DPP. And just this year Lai Ching-te made history by becoming the first back-to-back opposition President to serve in Taiwan. Turnout in Taiwan stays high, over 70% in the most recent election, and political parties continue to diversify, with the Taiwanese People’s Party (TPP) getting a record 26% of the vote. Taiwan’s democracy survived, and indeed, thrived in the face of Chen’s arrest. What did they do to prevent pernicious polarization?
On the one hand, Chen’s blatant violation of the law could not be ignored. A fledgling democracy is at high risk for undermining its institutions if corruption is allowed to run rampant. The rule of law is an essential part of a functioning democracy. But on the other hand, with a history of political repression, even the perception that the KMT was using the courts to punish their political opposition could irreparably damage the legitimacy of the Taiwanese government. How could the KMT led government thread this needle?
First, they waited until Chen was out of office, and until the Ma had been legitimately elected into office. In Taiwan, sitting Presidents have immunity from prosecution. But during Chen’s tenure as President, the KMT still controlled the legislature. They could have impeached him, removed him from office, and then charged him legally. Certainly this course of action would have been justified, but that can’t be the only consideration. Forcibly removing Chen from office would have seemed like a much more aggressive tactic, and much more like the punishment of a political opponent on the part of the KMT. It would have risked a partisan vote, where the KMT members voted to impeach while the DPP members didn’t, which would have then seemed like a way to skirt the democratic political process. Instead, by waiting until after the DPP lost the election and waiting until Chen no longer had Presidential immunity, the KMT was able to maintain democratic legitimacy.
Second, the KMT got help in their investigation from the Swiss. Originally the Swiss Minister of Justice reached out to the Ministry of Justice in Taiwan after investigating an account that turned out to belong to Chen’s son and daughter in law. Having evidence from, and aid in the investigation by a neutral, international third party helped lend legitimacy to the charges.
Third, the Taiwanese justice system itself acted like a robust, democratic institution. Although Chen was originally sentenced to life in prison, the appeal of the decision was automatic. In the appeal trial, the court maintained a strict definition of each of the charges. While his convictions for forgery and money laundering were upheld, he was not found guilty of embezzlement and corruption, since the prosecution could not prove that money was from bribes. So his sentence was reduced down to about 20 years. His wife, First Lady Wu Shu-chen, was also involved in the scandal. She pled guilty to the same charges of forgery and money laundering. Due to being paralyzed after being hit by a truck in 1985, and related health complications, she was spared jail time. Despite the initial sentence for Chen seeming to be rather heavy handed compared to the crime, Chen still got an automatic appeal. The process was otherwise open, and fairly run, making the government’s case against Chen relatively convincing to citizens.
Despite being a relatively young democracy, Taiwan managed to make it out of a scandal of government corruption, and potential repression with their democratic institutions not just intact, but stronger and more legitimate than before. The nation has many other aspects of its governance that contribute to the strength of its democracy but the way in which the government handled this specific controversy offers a good example of how to handle potentially polarizing situations in a democratic way. As the United States handles its own criminal investigation of a former President, we too should consider the importance of balancing the rule of law with the perception of legitimacy of our democratic institutions. Both are necessary for a democracy to function successfully. Prioritizing one over the other in either way may result in future unintended consequences that erode our democracy. It therefore behooves us to learn from states like Taiwan, which have successfully navigated similar challenges already.
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