U. S. presidents may have to conduct their personal secret diplomacy.Their lesser counterparts in Taipei have no need whatsoever to do so.But President Chen Shui-bian claims he spent part of a special fund under his control for the conduct of “affairs of state” – including some or all of NT$14.8 million his wife borrowed receipts and bills from friends and relatives as proof to write off – for his personal secret diplomacy.
Because of that write-off, first lady Wu Shu-chen is standing trial for corruption.Judges at the Taipei district court, where she is being tried, want to find out if her husband really did so, simply because public prosecutors doubt he did.At the request of prosecutors, the court has subpoenaed the file on his six secret diplomacy projects.He has refused to comply.
Doesn't Chen look closely like President Richard M. Nixon before he resigned in disgrace?Nixon had his conversations on the Watergate scandal with his top aides taped.Archibald Cos, Watergate special prosecutor, vowed to obtain them, and Nixon had him fired.But Cox's successor, Leon Jaworski, pursued the Nixon tapes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Nixon had to surrender the tapes.In less than a week later, the House of Representatives approved the impeachment of Nixon. He quited the presidency on August 9.
Will President Chen be following in Nixon’s footsteps?Not likely.
For one thing, Taiwan has no prosecutors like Cox and Jawworski.For another, our Council of Grand Justices, all of them appointed by President Chen, is unlikely to rule the file, which he said is classified top secret, has to be submitted.And even if the file were subpoenaed, he were proved to have lied, and the first lady were convicted, the president would not step down as he had promised.He has vowed to resign on his wife's conviction.But has he kept any of his promises that might hurt him?
Well, let's wait until January 12 to find out how the Accountgate trial will unfold.The court will hold a fourth hearing for the case and – hopefully – decide to subpoena the secret diplomacy file again.
In the meantime, we wish to point out again – we've lost count of how many agains – the country needs no personal presidential secret diplomacy.Former President Lee Teng-hui initiated it and Chen followed suit, the sole purpose being to find a couple of new unreliable diplomatic allies or to keep old ones from switching bought allegiance to Beijing.There is – we all but forget to mention – another purpose: To add some more presidential trappings on their visits abroad.
Time was when Taiwan had enough money for such secret diplomacy.With national debt almost equal gross domestic product, Taiwan cannot afford it and whoever succeeds President Chen should not even try his hand at personal secret diplomacy, which, needless to say, is of no help to our national security whatsoever.
（本文刊載於96.01.01 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）