The ongoing debacle over alleged plagiarism of academic theses has ensnared Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taoyuan mayoral candidate Lin Chih-chien (林智堅), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Nantou County commissioner candidate Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華), Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) and KMT Taoyuan mayoral candidate Simon Chang (張善政).
The accusations show how the rot within Taiwan’s political system cuts across party lines. Blue, green, white: Each of the nation’s political parties contains bad apples and power corrupts.
However, there are some clear differences between Taiwan’s political camps, especially the degree to which they have influence and authority over the nation’s freewheeling judiciary.
Pan-blue-sympathizing “dinosaur judges” sharpen their knives for the attack when a political foe is in their sights. They adhere to the perverse maxim of “guilty until proven innocent” and hand out biased sentences that are often not proportional to the crime.
In contrast, those in the pan-green camp frequently promise tough legal action, but their bark is often worse than their bite.
Taiwan’s partial media landscape sees pan-blue news media doggedly pursue their victims, whereas their pan-green camp counterparts usually adopt softer tactics such as feigning ignorance and refraining from inflaming a situation.
As for the individuals who become caught up in a political firestorm, those of a blue hue often behave shamelessly and act as if nothing has happened, whereas targeted individuals within the pan-green camp generally show shame and contrition when they are exposed. There is a distinct difference between the two camps.
National Taiwan University’s academic ethics committee took a mere 20 days to review former DPP mayoral candidate Lin’s master’s thesis, recommending that the degree be revoked. Several days later, Lin withdrew from the race.
By contrast, Feng Chia University is being more cautious in its review of Hsu’s thesis. At the time of writing, it is unclear when the university plans to announce the conclusion of its review. Meanwhile, Hsu is pretending that nothing has happened.
Similarly, Zhang, also a KMT candidate whose academic integrity is under the microscope, is claiming that the paper in question was not a thesis, but a research proposal, and therefore questions of plagiarism do not apply.
In 2018, then-newly inaugurated minister of education Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆) was accused by the KMT caucus of having breached regulations by applying for a technology patent in China while serving as National Dong Hwa University’s president. They demanded that Wu disprove an allegation — guilty until proven innocent. Wu resigned from his post, becoming the nation’s shortest-serving education minister, having held the position for a mere 41 days.
In the same year, CommonWealth Magazine exposed a conflict of interest between then-NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) and members of the university’s presidential election committee. Two committee members had been Kuan’s colleagues at Taiwan Mobile Co. NTU’s response was to deny the existence of a conflict of interest: Move on, nothing to see here.
On a superficial level, there appears to be no difference between the KMT and the DPP, with both containing a number of bad eggs.
However, there is a clear difference: For one party, the word “shame” appears not to feature in the vocabulary of its members.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor of National Hsinchu University of Education.
Translated by Edward Jones
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