Free to be Corrupt- Chen Shui-bian

This week we learn a little bit about the background of Taiwan, a country that has spent the last century in turmoil, and changing ruling hands twice. Recently there has been a push for their independence and hope was on the horizon with democratic elections, but their second democratically elected president, Chen Shui-bian, proved to be a little more corrupt than they hoped.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown, and
while the collective rage currently is focused on low
comp. Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was
convicted of looting hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
This is one of the biggest fraudcases ever.

(00:23):
Their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
Find out more on this week's episode of White Collars, Red
Hands. The history of Taiwan, like many
nations, is fraught with ambiguity of ownership and a
struggle for power. After years of oppression.
In the early 1990s, it looked asif democracy was finally making

(00:46):
its way to Taiwan. After decades of being under
martial law, Taiwan held its first democratic presidential
election in 1996. Although the winner was still a
candidate with close ties to thecountry that maintained
ownership of Taiwan, China, it was largely seen as a step in
the right direction. However, the opposition party

(01:07):
known as the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP,
created a buzz as calls for a stronger Taiwanese identity
globally and talks of Taiwanese independence grew from whispers
to actual voices within the party.
A man who would lead this party named Chen Shuibian, would be
elected in the second democraticpresidential election of Taiwan

(01:30):
but would go on to be the face of corruption, leading a party
that promised change but delivered the same
disappointment known by many citizens.
Of course, that is if you believe it wasn't all a
political setup to begin with. This week we dig into the
history of Taiwan and how Chen Shui Beyond maybe pulled off one
of the largest political capers in their history on this episode

(01:53):
of White Collar's Red Hands. I guess it just kind of feels
like what's happening now where like people are voicing their
opinions and then it's somebody shitty.
I mean, it's not quite the same,but.
So much in me wants to be like, it's so nuanced and there's so
much more just because once again, I've gone down a rabbit

(02:18):
hole, all right? And I learned way like a lot
more about Taiwanese history this past week.
Than ever in your life. That I ever thought that.
I would. You've never learned this much
about Taiwanese history. Ever know?
So you get to go on the journey that I went on, except for with

(02:40):
less tabs open in your Google Chrome browser.
Yeah, fair. I got, I got like straight up.
I got one window open and half the screen, another window open
the other half. The screen like. 15 tabs open on
each one clicking back and forthbetween stuff as I do this.
So you guys get to get the the summary of my like, ADHD hyper

(03:01):
fixation for the past seven days.
So welcome. My name's Kashan.
And I'm Nina. And today's ADHD hyper fixation
is Taiwanese history and and thethe presidency and corruption
conviction of Chen Shui beyond. So, you know, we might as well
just get into it. Dive into it.

(03:22):
And just like in our episode on the Turkey corruption scandal,
the gas for gold scandal, if youremember that it's only been
like a season and a half ago, this one I feel will need quite
a bit of context for most of ourlisteners because I'm assuming
that you, like me, like I said, did not really know much about

(03:44):
the geopolitical history of Taiwan.
Maybe you do. And if you do, I'm so sorry for
the 1st about half of this episode because you're going to
get a lot of stuff you already know.
But if you didn't, welcome. You know what, It's always nice
to have a refresher. So you're like, Oh, well, you
know, it's been, it's been a year or so since I really dug.
Really dug deep. Into the Taiwan, Yeah.

(04:08):
And since we are talking about acorrupt president, it is
important to know quite a bit ofTaiwan lore to understand his
rise and his eventual fall from grace.
So we got to go all the way backto the beginning, right?
The island of Taiwan, also knownas Formosa.
So if you see it referred to as such, don't be surprised.

(04:31):
There's a really good Taiwanese history podcast called the
Formosa Files that did a four part episode on this that
they've only released three parts of, by the way.
So go over there and get on them.
They released them like like 4-5months apart.
Sorry. Listen to the first three parts
and then. Then are you just waiting for
the last one to drop? They haven't put it out.

(04:52):
I don't know. The first one was in 2023, the
third one was was like late lastyear and the fourth part just
has not come out. Oh, they're probably not
finished. No, but why would you take so
long in between parts? There's a lot of research.
I'm not saying I'm not coming for for the foremost of files.
You know they do. They obviously do great work.
But so Formosa is another name for Taiwan that that was what

(05:16):
all that boiled down to. So it is an island off the
mainland of China in the South China Sea, kind of between Japan
and the Philippines. If you know, you know, maps,
unlike me. Taiwan is currently one of the
most densely populated countries.
And yes, I'm referring to it as a country, but that is contested

(05:38):
as we will soon find out. And it has a population of 23.9
million people, covering 168 islands and representing just
under 14,000 square miles of land, which makes it one of the
most densely populated countriesin the world.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the island for more

(05:59):
than 25,000 years, but it was annexed by the King dynasty of
China in 1683. Oh, so they've had this for a
while. Yes, it's largely been under
Chinese rule since then. However, after the first Sino
Japanese War was ended with a Chinese defeat in 1895, the

(06:20):
Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded multiple things to Japan,
including the island of Taiwan. Yeah, they've had a lot of back
and forth. I didn't know that.
Yeah. And this is also where it comes
under where they're like China nowadays will say, well, it's
always been part of China. So.

(06:40):
So they're just like a rogue defector.
I don't like like state, kind of, but not a state like a rogue
defector. Part of what has always been a
very unified one, China. But you're like, you gave them
away. Yeah, you did give them away.
You gave them away for 50 years,you know, from 1895 until the

(07:04):
end of World War 2. So yeah, about 50 years.
And it like I think. That's like exact actually.
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much exactly.
So you might remember, though, that Japan not not on the
winning side of the Second World.
War. And China was with the Allied
powers, which means that after the Axis powers were defeated,

(07:28):
Japan was the one that needed todo some ceding to China.
So in 1945, exactly 50 years later, Taiwan returned back to
the administrative control of the Republic of China.
Of course. I mean, what would be better?
Right after just fighting one ofthe worst wars in history in

(07:50):
World War 2 then just like you know what civil war.
They're like, we haven't had enough.
We need, we need more war. We got all these guns.
What are we going to do with allof them?
We should use these somehow. We really should use these.
And that's exactly what happenedas there was a communist
uprising in China following World War 2, leading to the
ousting of the major political party, the KMT, and replacing it

(08:14):
with the Mao Zedong LED Communist Party that we know and
love of today, the People's Republic of China.
In 1949, the KMT party leader Xiang Kai Shek was not like
captured as a result of this civil war, but he instead, with
a bunch of other dissidents, withdrew to Taiwan, claiming it

(08:37):
for the Republic of China, whichis different than the Communist
People's Republic of. China.
Oh, not to be confused with the People's Republic of China.
Yeah, they really just the Republican.
They were like, we're not going to change the name that much.
Kind of like a Prince in the artist formerly known as Prince
type of situation. Well, because he changed his
name to a symbol. True.

(08:59):
At least they didn't do that. They didn't.
That's so confusing. So while they while the Republic
of China took Taiwan, they stillclaimed ownership of all of
China and and claimed that the People's Republic of China were
actually the dissidents and not the mainland's real rulers, even
though they kind of like had it.So they kind of were, and for a

(09:25):
while most Western countries, including the United States,
also recognized the Republic of China and by default Taiwan,
'cause that's the only place they were as the official
representatives of China, even though they had no actual
control over the mainland. OK, so Taiwan was the the
Republic of China, the Republic of China, and they were seen as

(09:49):
the official representatives. Of China.
Of all of China, yes. While mainland China was the
People's Republic of China led by Mao Zedong, Yes.
OK, but they But that was not officially recognized also
probably because, you know, likethe communists, they were
communists. So yeah, we.
But fun fact, even though they were communists, China's

(10:11):
literacy rate skyrocketed duringthose years, 90% Ninety 7% of
the country was was literate. Slash became literate under
Zedong's rule. Fun fact, Fun fact, fun fact.
Of course, this would end in 1971, when the UN voted instead
to recognize the People's Republic of China.
I mean it is more bland. They were also, they were like,

(10:35):
well, you've had it for like 2 decades.
Like we're, we're not doing thisanymore.
The Taiwanese people who had spent the last 50 years once
again completely separate from China under Japanese rule
originally were hopeful of theirmove back to the Republic of
China, Although things quickly became contentious.

(10:55):
Two years after they were brought back in 1947, tension
had grown in Taiwan to the harshrule of KMT.
They weren't like the coolest, the chillest leaders.
You know, they also, you know, they complained about economic
mismanagement of, of the KMT in the Republic of China, as well
as like very frequent political corruption.

(11:17):
So there wasn't there was a lot of friction between Taiwan and
their rulers and this exploded when on February 28th, 1974,
during an anti smuggling crackdown in Taiwan's capital
city of Taipei, KMT authorities beat a Taiwanese woman that they
suspected of selling contraband cigarettes and when bison.

(11:39):
Yeah, there's, You can't have those Marlboros in here.
Pall Malls only, bitch. You think they got like the
Marlboro cowboy in? Taiwan.
She came to Taiwan to sell the the cigarettes, yes.
And when bystanders saw this andbegan to get angry at these
authorities hitting. Fair enough.
An officer ended up firing into the crowd, hitting and killing a

(12:00):
man and also I think wounding atleast one other maybe.
Not 100% sure on that though. The next day, protests erupted
across Taiwan, and in response, the appointed governor, Chen GI.
Do you think he was chill? No, no, he wasn't chill at all.
He called for military reinforcements.

(12:21):
That led to a very brutal and bloody military suppression of
these protests, largely through just mass execution.
Man, that's horrible. Yeah, this lasted until May
16th, so the 27th to the 16th and later estimates put the
death toll anywhere from 18 to 28,000.

(12:44):
People, that's a lot. Killed in that time.
This obviously further divided the Taiwanese from their Chinese
rulers and what has been writtenin the history books as the 228
incident February 28th has been seen as a watershed moment for
the push for Taiwanese independence.
It also meant that when the Republic of China was ousted

(13:06):
from the mainland to Taiwan, thecitizens were not so happy with
that, that now they are the onlyhome to these people that have
caused. Chaos.
Yeah, this terrible time. So in 1949, the Republic of
China declared martial law in Taiwan, and it was declared for

(13:29):
almost 40 years. That is a very long time.
It was the longest time actuallyever it was that.
Is difficult. That doesn't sound like a good
time. Yeah, I think 48 years of
martial law is probably the least fun time that I can
imagine. Yeah.
And this period of time that Taiwan was under martial law

(13:50):
became known as the White Terrorand was marked by countless
executions. Another like 3 to 4000 people
were executed who were deemed politically opposed to the
Republic of China rule or were sympathetic to the communist
rule on mainland China. So not only were they going
after the Taiwanese that didn't want the Republic of China there
at all, they were going over other Chinese people that fled,

(14:12):
that were more sympathetic than communists.
So it was a bad time. And amid this turmoil, one of
the leaders who would attempt topave the way to Taiwanese
independence was born Chen Shui Bian.
So just a year after the declaration of martial law, Chen
Shui Bian was born to a poor family in an already poor

(14:33):
nation. While technically born in 1950,
he was not provided a legal birth certificate until 1951, as
was actually common practice because so many children would
die in infancy. Oh wow, that.
If that is really sad. If they were kind of sick, they
were like, just wait because. They're like, we can't waste the
paper and the ink. Because this one might not make

(14:54):
it, like, there's just no point.But he did.
He made it. And his family were tenant
farmers, which is a process akinto, like, sharecropping here in
America. They live on the landlord's land
and like, till the land. And they have to like, you know,
pay them a part of whatever theydo.
So a bad system of living is usually keeps the most poverty

(15:15):
stricken people even. Even poor poverty.
So despite these extremely humble beginnings, Chen showed
immense acumen in the classroom.He graduated from one of the
best high schools in the in the country with honors and had his
pick of where to attend university.
And obviously, he decided to pick the best university in

(15:36):
Taiwan, the aptly named NationalTaiwan University.
You might think that with his grades, Chen would naturally
want to become a doctor, right? That's the that's what most
people will push for in Taiwan. But he opted instead for
business administration as his major because he saw it as the

(15:58):
best path to make money and finally lift his destitute
family out of poverty. Yeah, that's very understanding.
However, quickly after he got touniversity, he shifted his
interest and his major to law, another well paid occupation, I.
Was just going to say when you said doctor, I was like, yeah,
either doctor or lawyer is what people tend to go with.

(16:18):
Yeah, but I feel like you make less money as a lawyer.
It depends on what kind of law you're in.
If you're doing corporate law, like right out of school, you
make about 250,000. Guess what he did?
Corporate law. And honestly, he didn't even
need the degree because before he wrapped up his junior year,
he took the bar exam. Not only did he pass, but he got

(16:41):
the highest score allowable. And although he and although he
became the first student ever todo that to get his license to
practice law before graduating, he still wrapped up his degree.
That would make me feel better that my lawyer did finish
school. Yeah.
And he. Because there's probably
something you're going to miss in that last semester.

(17:02):
He passed the I mean he passed the exam like honestly, the
exams are way harder than the school.
So it's like if you that's true,if you can get the highest score
on the exam, you're fine. You're.
A Yeah, I have confidence. You could have, you could have
not graduated high school, but you're probably the best at it
if you do that. But he graduated with his
Bachelors of Law in commercial law in 1974.

(17:25):
His move into law firm business administration was actually
because he gained an interest inpolitics after he had a former
middle school teacher that was publicly the the victim of
political persecution by the KMT.
And that compounded with attending an election rally for
like a KMT politician had brokenfrom the party and was running

(17:51):
as an independent and had a political rally like at the
university. He attended it.
And that combined with this like, like someone close to it
and was getting persecuted by the government, pushed him
towards law 'cause he was more interested in politics.
Now. And while at university, that

(18:12):
wasn't all work for Chen, right?He fell in love with a woman
from an affluent family, Wushu Chen, which he had gone to
middle school with. Actually, they they had
reconnected it like a like a like a middle school reunion
literally. And she thought he was super
boring I guess. Oh well, I, you know the guy

(18:34):
that got the perfect score on his bar exam I figured would be
like super interesting and fun. Well.
It's funny because he was like, he was like in the debate club
and he was like practicing his like public speaking.
But yeah, I guess he was just. She said.
He sounds like a fucking nerd. She said he'd come over and just
sit there and she would just talk the whole time.

(18:54):
Oh, that's my ideal man, what isshe complaining about?
Oh my God. Someone who only lets me talk
the whole time. Oh, you're a narcissist?
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, I'm a yapper and a
narcissist like. I'm not a narcissist, I'm just
the best. I'm not a narcissist, I'm just
better than everybody. It's on.
Narcissism. If it's true, yeah.

(19:15):
OK, get with it. OK.
But sorry that you don't understand.
You aren't smart enough to get it, but that's OK.
You might eventually be be able to figure it out.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't think so.
I don't think I'm ever going to be that smart.
So although there was some friction between her family as
well. And well, yeah, he was poor and
they were rich. That's exactly what it was right

(19:36):
now. Her dad was a doctor and wanted
also wanted her to marry a doctor to like keep his practice
going after he died. It was.
Nepotism because. He, like he had a son, but the
son was already doing something else.
The son was just stupid as fuck.He couldn't be a doctor.
He was like, well, you need to. Oh, that's actually what it was.
No, no, you're. Right calling a lot of this
today he. Didn't get good enough grades to

(19:57):
be a doctor so he was like you have to marry a doctor or else
there's no one to take on my practice.
Well. But yeah, and also he was quite
wealthy and Chen Shui beyond literally came from a dirt poor
farming family, so so it was notthe best.
The distance actually between the two of them and how they
grew up was so large that when he visited her college dorm for

(20:20):
the first time, he supposedly miss.
He like mistook her wardrobe fora refrigerator 'cause he didn't
actually know what a refrigerator looked like.
Oh wow. So he was like, is this your
refrigerator? And it was literally her like
wardrobe. Oh wow.
She's like, no, that's where I put her clothes.
It's literally my dresser. That's insane.
That's where I put clothes in mypath to Narnia.

(20:42):
Actually, that is so no matter though, as the two were married
in 1975. Of course, without the
attendance of Wu Shu Chen's family, they did not come.
Chenshui beyond went on to work as a partner at Formosa
International Marine and Commercial Law, which provided
maritime law services to clients, where he represented a
Taiwanese shipping company. That sounds boring.

(21:05):
Of. Course that job sounds very
boring. Of course, but I'm sure he made.
Good money. Quite a bit of money.
Well, no one wants to do that job, so yeah, you make good
money. Well, he worked there until 1989
but became more involved with politics in 1980 when he chose
to defend multiple opposition party members.
These are DPP members who were arrested at a protest demanding

(21:28):
Taiwanese democracy for Human Rights Day.
This incident took place in Cauchyung Province of Taiwan and
became known as the Cauchyung Incident.
The Qashiang 8 were 8 prominent leaders that were put on trial
by the KMT government and Chen Shui Beyond represented the
opposition leader Huan Sin Shih,but Chen's future vice president

(21:52):
Annette Liu was also one of the Qashiang 8.
Where did Annette Liu come from?Annette Liu.
This is like the most. This is like a very English
name. There's a guy named Frank later,
so I I why? Why there are some names that
seem more familiar to a westerner in these, I don't
know. Yeah, sounds like that's like

(22:14):
when the foreign exchange students would come from China
and they would be like, hi, I'm Lucinda.
And I'm like, no, you're not. Yeah, I.
That's not your name. When I was doing my masters,
half the program was literally like, like when they stepped out
to go to the school, it was liketheir first time in America from
China. And yeah, they were always like,
my name's Sylvia. And I'm like, no, it's not.

(22:38):
That's not. I saw your name.
It's Humshao. Yeah.
But they're always just like, it's hard for you to say.
And I was like, you don't have to do this.
You don't have to do that. Like you have to do that.
You're like my names, Kashan. Yeah, I was like, I will learn
if you want. And they're like just call me
Sylvia. I'm like, okay, whatever you
want. All right, Sylvia.
But just so you know, you don't have to do this.

(22:58):
But yeah, Annette, yeah, I don'tknow.
Obviously, though, this this washeavily politically motivated.
The KMT government was trying torepress political resistance,
you know? So all eight were convicted
despite Chen's efforts, and theywere sentenced to anywhere
between 12 years to life in prison.

(23:19):
Seems like a lot over. Yeah.
Just like hosting a protest. So none of them served their
full time however, but some people did serve like 7 to 9
years and many did go on to holdpolitical office not long after
their release. This publicly LED Chen to
winning a seat on the Taipei City Council.

(23:40):
The I don't know if I mentioned this, that is the capital city
of Taiwan. OK that he won a seat on the
City Council in 1981 and his political activism led him to
start an association that published the Neo Formosa
magazine which supported opposite which supported the
opposition to the KMT party. This however landed him in some

(24:02):
hot water though as the Neo Formosa published a story that
claimed a prominent member of the New Party, which is another
like Chinese Nationalist Party accused this member Elmer.
Elmer, there's another one for you, Elmer Fun of plagiarizing
his doctoral dissertation. This got Chen slapped with a

(24:24):
libel charge though, which is not just a civil crime there but
a criminal charge and he was convicted and sentenced to a
year in prison for libel. Dude.
But while he was appealing the decision, he still ran for
county magistrate in Tainan County in 1985.

(24:45):
He would ultimately go on to lose that election for
magistrate. So but it was tradition in
Taiwan to go on tour to thank your supporters whether you won
or lost an election. So he was off on his his thank
you tour with his running mate and that's when things got a

(25:07):
little bit worse for him. His wife, Wushu Chen was
actually hit twice by a hand tractor, which it kind of looks
like the IT kind of looks like the front half of a quad and
then has and then attached as like a trailer for hauling
goods. And like by definition is A1
axle like trailer hauler. OK, this accident left Wushu

(25:30):
Chen paralyzed from the waist down.
Oh, that's horrible. And she would need a wheelchair
for the rest of she she's still alive, but she has needed a
wheelchair for the rest of her life.
It also started speculation thatit had maybe been planned by the
government. Like there was like this idea
that the government had had purposely done this because she
also got hit twice. Yeah, how do you get hit place

(25:51):
by that thing? He hit her.
Twice. So like he hit her and then
backed up. I don't know, like what the
fuck? I don't know the details, but
everything said she got hit twice.
Yeah, so. Seems a little fishy.
And supposedly this was to intimidate Chen Shui Bian from
pushing his idea of Taiwanese independence, which he was, you
know, pushing a lot in the Neo Formosa and in a lot of the

(26:13):
things he said, although there is no definitive evidence for
this, I should obviously say we don't really know.
Things continued poorly for Chenas he lost his appeal and did
end up going to prison for that libel conviction in 1986,
serving seven months of his one year sentence.
Meanwhile, his wife actually also took up politics in this

(26:36):
time and was elected to the legislature, the Legislative
Yuan, which is kind of like if the Senate and the House of
Representatives were like, one thing, it's kind of like a
parliament, I guess. Like, the entire legislative
branch was just like 1 group. OK.
And she did this while Chen was in prison.
For those seven months after hisrelease, he actually served as

(26:59):
his wife's chief counsel until he himself was elected to the
Legislative Yuan in 1989. What a power couple.
The year later she did not run for re election and instead
focused on being like a wife andpolitical supporters.
So, but she did. But she was there for a little

(27:19):
bit. Yeah.
They actually have had quite a few elected female leaders.
That's cool. Believe it or not, they they had
their first female president in 2016.
He quickly gained support in theDemocratic Progressive Party,
serving as the executive director of the caucus in the
Yuan, which kind of made him theparty's de facto leader.
Kind of like the, like the Senate Minority Leader, like.

(27:41):
But we only have two parties, soyou know, if there was more than
two. And he was instrumental in
laying the plans for the party, specifically in their plans to
declare independence for Taiwan,including something that became
known as the four ifs that basically said Taiwan like,
like, we want to push for immediate declaration of

(28:03):
Taiwanese independence. If one of these four things
happened, If the KMT unilaterally holds talks with
the Chinese Communists, OK. If the KMT sold out the
interests of the people of Taiwan, that's a little open,
but OK. Yeah, open to interpretation.
If the Chinese communists annexed Taiwan doesn't seem to
make sense. And if the KMT did not implement

(28:25):
true constitutional democracy, Iguess that one's also kind of
open. But that was a big part of their
like, political stance, their. Their platform.
Yes, their platform, this was popular.
I mean, not with KMT supporters or the Republic of China

(28:47):
supporters that had fled from the mainland so many decades
before, but with enough people that Chen won an election to be
the mayor of Taipei in 1994. He's.
Moving up. He only got 43.67% of the vote,
though, because Chinese nationalist votes were split
enough between the KMT and new party candidates that Chen took

(29:09):
home the victory. Nice.
Literally like the the new partyrunner like had split from the
KMT. Like they both ran, this guy
lost and said I'll just run as adifferent party.
So they split and then he won with 43% of the vote.
He was also extremely popular among citizens.

(29:30):
During his mayoral tenure, he led successful campaigns to get
rid of illegal gambling and prostitution in the city.
Oh, so he just ruined everybody's fun.
Well, at least for illegal gambling and prostitution.
He made a shift towards cutting down pollution and focus on
sustainability. He built parks on municipal land
that had been squatted on by KMTaffiliates, actually naming one

(29:54):
of these the 228 Peace Memorial Park after the 228 incident.
So. That's a good thing.
Pretty progressive against the the the KMT government, he
repaired infrastructure and renamed roads to better reflect
Taiwan's identity. Notably, he he renamed a road
that ran right outside of the the mayor's office to Katagalan

(30:15):
Blvd. after an Aboriginal peopleof the Taiwanese Valley where
before it had a name that was a reference to Chiang Kai Shek the
the the leader of the Republic of China that took over Taiwan.
When he came up for re election in 1998, he managed to get more

(30:37):
total votes and a higher percentpercentage of votes backed by
his very popular things that he did in his first term.
But the Popular Party rallied behind the KMT.
The vote was not split like lasttime and Chen actually did lose
the election. That sucks because it seems like
he did a lot of good things for the city.

(30:58):
Yeah, they just did. The the other party got their
stuff together and they just had.
Enough of the votes had enough of the vote.
Yeah, he instead took the he instead took two years to build
a campaign for president, touring the world to meet with
prominent political leaders. I know that he got endorsements
from, like, the leader, a prominent leader in Japan and a

(31:19):
prominent leader in South Korea.And when the 2000 election came,
his opposition nationally did not learn from the Taipei
mayoral elections. Chen won the presidential
election in 2000 with only 39% of the vote, a slim margin over
the independent nominee James Sung, who once again broke off

(31:40):
from the KMT to run as an independent because the vote was
split and he got 37% of the vote.
So. He still pretty close.
Like 2%, yeah, as far as elections go, pretty close.
Slim margin. Or kind of far Elections are
always close, I don't know. Immediately upon his entry into

(32:02):
office, Chen Shui beyond realized that he was still
deadlocked in policy as many KMTpublic officials were still in
the Legislative Yuan and would not be able to push an agenda,
so he instead tried to reach across the aisle.
He appointed like KMT affiliatesto almost half of his original

(32:25):
cabinet positions. Like from the opposite like this
would be like if we elected a Democratic.
And then he was like putting Republicans in the office.
Yeah, like well, in his cabinet.Right in his cabinet like.
Half of the cabinet was Republicans, like they're saying
they might do like one or two. They used to do that more often
than they do now. But, like, half is a lot.
Yeah. And he also pledged that Taiwan

(32:47):
would not declare independence from China unless they launched
military action against the island, which they had
threatened a lot. Yeah.
Yeah. So I mean, that's a good thing
to put out. I'd be like, well, if you attack
us, we'll. Yeah, then we're going.
To then we'll be independent, but until then, we'll be chill.
We're chilling. And this worked.

(33:09):
A few weeks into his presidency,he held an approval rating of
70%. But it had nowhere to go but
down from there. Obviously that's pretty high.
So that year a recession hit Taiwan and actually the rest of
Asia, and stock markets crashed and unemployment rose in Taiwan.
To top this off, most of Chen's attempts to pass policy were

(33:32):
just deadlocked by the KMT controlled legislature.
He really couldn't get anything passed through without huge
concessions. He faced criticism for defunding
a multibillion dollar project tobuild a nuclear power plant that
had actually already been started in like 1/4 of the way
completed, citing environmental issues.
But they already spent like a billion dollars and they would

(33:55):
still have like 3 billion more to spend.
And he was just like, no, we're going to stop.
I mean, I don't really blame himon that one.
Yeah, well, it's just the people.
Especially if it was yeah, yeah.Especially the KMT and they
responded by trying to recall Chen from office, like like
vote. Because basically what they have
to do is they have to get a certain majority of people in

(34:16):
the legislature to to put to a vote to the people to recall him
from office. Like it's kind of like if an
impeachment of the president hadto be done by like a Democratic,
like like nationwide vote. But for that vote to pass, the
legislature had to pass it. It never even got to that point
at this point, but they tried, and by the end of his first year

(34:38):
in office, his 70% approval raterating had dropped to 25.
Oh wow, that plummeted. Over the next few years he
slowly stopped trying to lean across the aisle and started
angering China by making subtle moves towards a more independent
Taiwan on the Republic of China passports that they print.

(35:00):
They started putting like Taiwanon it which had not been there
before and they also started replacing China with Taiwan and
names of multiple like state owned businesses and making.
He also made multiple visits to the USA to receive awards which

(35:21):
upset them because it like everytime that he would would receive
an award in the western world, it would seem to like legitimize
the Taiwanese government over the Chinese government, so that
always upset them too. He also upset KMT members and
supporters of the Republic of China by removing many pictures
of their former leader Chiang Kai Shek that had hung in

(35:42):
political offices for decades. He took them down and and and
like political offices, like, replaced it with a picture of
himself. Oh yeah.
I mean, he's the president, so like it's like in the
presidential building, he took down the Chiang Kai Shek and put
up pictures of. Him and that pissed people off.
Oh hell yeah, hell yeah, Becauseall the people that are in the
KMC party are still very. Pro.

(36:04):
Very chill and cool with what went on during.
The white. During the white terror because
they came from China. Yeah.
But all the people that were in Taiwan.
They're very. Very in Taiwan, they're very not
cool with it. Yeah, because they they killed
so many people. You know, it's, it's a not cool
situation. This would lead you to believe,

(36:25):
right, that that he caused so much of A stir.
His approval rating was so low that when he ran for re election
in 2004, that he would he would be absolutely steamrolled,
right. And he probably would have been
if he didn't get shot. Huh, interesting.
Literally the day before the election, he was shot in the

(36:47):
stomach in Tai Nan while campaigning.
It is believed that the sympathyfrom this incident is what
squeaked Chen across the finish line as he was re elected by
just 30,000 votes out of 12.9 million votes cast.
That is not much. That is 0.23% of the votes.

(37:10):
Damn. That.
Is a slim margin. That's a slim margin.
I take back what I said about 2%.
And a close election. Yeah, it like there was also
speculation put out that he somehow like faked it, Like he

(37:32):
somehow faked this to get the sympathy.
That one's a little crazy to me.It, it is like a little like
tinfoil hat like conspiracy thing, though, where the main
guy that they were like the mainsuspect that they they think
shot him, they did so because ofa suicide letter that he wrote.
Like he was found dead in like acanal like seven days after the

(37:53):
attempted assassination. And supposedly in his suicide
note, he had wrote down a confession, but his family had
burned the suicide. Notes.
Convenient. That's convenient.
So there's still like speculation about.
Who actually did it or? Who knows, maybe it was the KMT

(38:15):
and they they had hired someone to kill him and it just got
botched so they drowned him in ariver.
Who knows? I mean, none of that sounds too
crazy. Well, the KMT had done stuff
like that. I remember the the Kaushong 8
that I mentioned, one of the people that was convicted there,

(38:35):
his whole like his family was murdered while he was in prison
awaiting trial, even though his house was supposedly under 24
hour police surveillance. They were just they were stabbed
to death in their house. Yeah, somebody wasn't watching,
somebody wasn't doing their job or somebody did a job that they

(38:58):
a different job. That's.
What I'm saying so, you know, could be, Yeah.
Tin foil hat off. Chen's son-in-law, Chow Chi and
Ming was arrested two years intoa second term in May of 2006 and
charged with insider trading andembezzlement.
It turns out he had met with thechairman of the board for a bank

(39:19):
that was about to give big bailout money to a land
development company, and he bought shares before it was
publicly announced. So he made he made a bunch of
money, which obviously is insider trading.
And his son-in-law was found guilty and sentenced to six
years in prison in late 2006. But this kind of kicked off a
whole scrutiny of Chen's financial dealings and those of

(39:42):
his close family. This led to his wife, along with
others, being indicted on corruption charges in November
of 2006. She was accused of faking
documents in order to personallyenrich herself of about $450,000
of governmental money, and they supposedly did this by creating

(40:04):
fake invoices to pull money out of a state affairs fund that was
intended for national security expenses and instead just
diverted the money into their own personal accounts.
I thought you were going to say for a minute that she faked
being in a wheelchair. No, she's very.
Much, very much. She's very much really in a
wheelchair, OK, Or she's just really good at faking it.

(40:27):
She. Just looks super good at not
walking. But it's, yeah, as far as we
know, she's rolling everywhere. They see me rolling.
They also accused his wife of accepting routine bribes in the
forms of kickbacks for multiple companies that were granted
governmental contracts. They also accused Chad himself

(40:49):
of being an accomplice to this, at least the beginning in these
fake invoices slash bribery schemes, as obviously he would
have to be since the first lady likely couldn't do something
like this alone. But the Constitution actually
provided him with kind of general immunity from being
prosecuted for a crime while he was still president.
So they just said that he is like a suspected accomplice.

(41:12):
And they they they said outrightthat like, yeah, once he's not
the president, he's probably going to get arrested.
Chen publicly announced that he was ceding control of the
government of all governmental matters to the leader of the
Yuan, the legislature known as the premier.

(41:33):
Kind of like a Prime Minister I guess, and would only retain
power where the constitution required him to in matters like
foreign affairs. But the day-to-day runnings were
gonna be done by the premier, and he announced that despite
this step, the KMT again pushed to recall him from the
presidency and there was some push inside the DPP, his own

(41:56):
party, to publicly explain the charges.
He was getting some pushback from inside now.
So Chen publicly showed receiptsand supporting evidence for the
charges to the accounts. Despite this though, there were
multiple public demonstrations and protests calling for him to
resign, which he did not do thatvote to recall him.

(42:20):
They did finally put that to a vote.
All of the KMT members voted to to put the recall to a vote and
everyone else abstained so it didn't pass.
They missed by like 20 votes or something.
Wow. So despite this, there were
public demonstrations calling for him to resign, which he did
not do and he was not recalled. But the voters ended his tenure

(42:43):
in 2008. I think they only have a 2
policy thing or a two term thinganyway so I don't think he could
have ran for re election at their time but whatever the DPP
candidate Frank. There's Frank.
Frank. Shia lost by a good margin to
KMT representative Ma Ying Zhu and Chen stepped down in May of

(43:04):
2008. Now without immunity, he was
directed not to leave Taiwan. You better not be going nowhere.
And the new president declassified financial documents
from Chen. 'S presidency.
And after a 2 year investigation, it was determined
that Chen and his wife had amassed 200 million U.S. dollars

(43:26):
in the form of kickback bribes while he was in office, which
they then laundered through Swiss bank accounts and shell
companies in the Cayman Islands before being used to buy luxury
property overseas and luxury goods such as jewelry.
They further obscured these transactions by having accounts

(43:47):
be not listed in their names, but in the names of close
relatives. And this was discovered from
those declassified documents as well as the Swiss authorities
fully complied with the investigation.
So they had information directlyfrom the banks.
And because this the the Chen family had originally denied

(44:07):
even owning overseas accounts, but later switched to saying,
OK, well we do own the accounts,but all that money that went
through them actually wasn't embezzled from the government,
but rather from political campaign donations, which I
think is equally. I don't know.
And bustling. Equally is bad, but.
And bustling's and bustling justlike so.
It's still illegal. I'm pretty sure it's not good.

(44:30):
Yeah, don't think that much. Don't think that is much better.
In the end, Chen Shui Beyond andWushu Chen were both convicted
of corruption charges and sentenced to life in prison.
Damn, I can't imagine being in prison and being in a wheelchair
at the same time. That would suck.
Well, she doesn't. She doesn't have to either.
She didn't go to prison. Oh, she oh, I thought you said

(44:51):
him and his wife. Oh, she was sentenced to life in
prison for sure, but she was deemed too I'll to serve time
and was placed on house arrest. So she never went to prison
because she was in a wheelchair.OK.
They were also slapped with a $6.13 million fine, which was
way less than yeah. That's like a.
They funnel through, by the way.But I mean, I guess if you're
putting them in prison for life,yeah.

(45:14):
All right, I didn't mean they can't spend their money anyway.
So later though his his sentencewas reduced to 20 years.
And obviously I mentioned Wu ShuChen never actually served a day
in prison. Chen Shui beyond had a difficult
time in prison. I would assume.
Where he was diagnosed with multiple cognitive disorders.
He was said to have a minor stroke.

(45:35):
While he was in prison, he was diagnosed with clinical
depression. He purportedly attempted suicide
in 2013 and in January of 2015 he was granted a medical release
from prison on parole. Medical parole after serving
just six years. He was still restrained on the
amount of public and political appearances he made.

(45:56):
He was actually not supposed to speak publicly about anything
political as part of his release.
OK. However, he has hosted a non
political radio program since 2021.
Interesting. And was spotted at a political
ceremony in 2024. And he also still seems to be in

(46:17):
perfect physical health. Well, I felt better once he got
out of jail. Yeah, I feel better now than I
left, that's why. I feel good now.
Good now. In the end, there was a lot of
controversy over Chen Shui Beyond and his corruption case.
People on his side say that the entire trial and the sentencing

(46:37):
was merely political theater puton the KMT to downplay Taiwanese
independence and a lot of it wasjust made-up or or you know,
blown out of proportion. They cite the fact that he was
held in jail without bail for 600 days while going through
trial before actually proving him guilty, which people did
think was excessive, and to all the other atrocities that the

(47:01):
party had committed in the past.They also say that this is kind
of had been the norm for politicians, so no matter what
party you were from and that this was just selective
prosecuting by the KMT. They said we'll go after him
because he's a political opponents.
Opponents to him say that well, there is obviously credible
evidence for the forgery and thebribery that was going on in the

(47:25):
Chen administration and that a crackdown on corruption is
exactly what they needed at the moment.
Most people though in Taiwan andme included here, think that
Chen Shui beyond almost definitely committed the crimes.
Oh yeah, 100%. That he was accused of.
There's a lot of evidence that seems that doesn't just come
from the government, that seems like he definitely was making

(47:48):
money from somewhere and funneling it through a lot of
very shady routes, but that the sentencing that followed was
likely politically motivated life in prison.
Even reduced to 20 years, it's still quite a lot for what he
did. And then you only served 6.
And his wife, the KMT, wanted toget him out of there.

(48:11):
But recently the DPP has made a resurgence and have actually
held the presidential position since 2016.
And obviously the topic of independence from and distancing
from mainland China is still a hot button issue, not just in
Taiwan, but in the internationalstage for them.
It's still and, and I would justlike to say America's like

(48:34):
official stance is like not wanting Taiwan to to declare
independence. Oh, interesting.
So they've kept like a, they've kept a purposeful ambiguity
where they keep like a, like a faux embassy in Taiwan, but they
never, they, they really try to avoid, try to try to avoid

(48:58):
declaring. Like a side.
Or yeah, declaring a side because they don't want China to
annex Taiwan. They have said that if China
does use military to invade likeTaiwan that that they would
intervene. But they keep it like President
Biden said multiple times that that he was not for Taiwan

(49:23):
declaring independence either. So it's a complicated issue.
Very complicated. But thank you as that is the end
you. You got a little of my hyper
fixation for the week on Taiwanese history and I know
more than I ever thought I wouldand now hopefully you do as

(49:43):
well. So if you appreciate the amount
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(50:04):
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(50:24):
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(51:09):
Fred hansongmail.com. The best thing you can do
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(51:33):
is falling asleep because she has a chronic illness, so.
I feel a lot better than I did alittle bit ago.
So I think that's it. Is that it?
All right. Well, thank you guys so much for
listening. We'll see you next week on
another episode of White Collar's.
Red hands.