The Black Eagles-Game-Fixing in Taiwan Pro Ball

The Chinese Professional Baseball League had seven years of experience under its collective belt, and a rival, the Taiwan Major League, was preparing for its debut season, when a baseball gambling scandal came to light before the Chinese New Year and the Taipei Prosector's Office brought several players in for questioning. Laying bare the corruption and gang money underneath the squeaky-clean image of professional sports, the scandal threatens to crush the island's sporting spirit. The passion for baseball here has stood no greater test since Taiwan Little League players first made a name for themselves in international competition.

In late January district attorneys began their first round of questioning and investigation into game-fixing by gamblers, about which rumors had long circulated. Charges were filed against three members of the China Times Eagles squad-pitchers Kuo Chien-cheng and Cho Kun-yuan and third-baseman Ku Sheng-chi-as well as several members of a gambling ring.

Under questioning Kuo Chien-cheng asserted that more than half of all professional players were involved in gambling-related game fixing, and that professional baseball was entirely under the control of underworld gangs. The charges not only put players on the hot seat, as their integrity was called into question, but also caused companies to step back from sponsorship and made ardent fans wonder if, as they had anxiously rooted on their favorite teams, they were not simply being taken for a ride. Would they still want to watch baseball? Would there be any pro ball to watch?

Kuo Chien-cheng, who had the third highest salary of all players last year, admitted that he threw, instead of pitched, more than ten games. For each game he threw, he received NT$400,000-500,000, while other players would get NT$300,000-400,000. Kuo and the other questioned players revealed that they would use such methods as intentionally swinging to miss when up at the plate, walking or hitting the batter or throwing wild pitches when on the mound, and letting balls drop for base hits when in the field. Apart from the bribes they took to throw games, the players would sometimes gamble on the games themselves, always betting against the Eagles. If their pursuit of failure was successful, for every NT$10,000 they had bet, they would win NT$9,900, minus NT$500 for the bookie, leaving them with earnings of NT$9,400. Kuo Chien- cheng stated that starting from May of last year, he received more than NT$12 million all told by throwing games. Cho Ku-yuan and Ku Sheng-chi admitted to earning several million each. Nevertheless, they all stated that they hoped that the investigators would be able to clean up professional baseball and rid it of underworld influence.

When ball games become staged, players are victims too. While pro baseball players may have better financial prospects than other ROC athletes, the golden years of their prime last only about a decade, and many find the chance to earn some extra money in their youth hard to pass up. They make easy prey for the underworld, which brings with it violence, threats and bribery. Once having started down that slippery slope, it's hard to turn back. Many players who have long been mainstays of ROC baseball are implicated in this scandal, and it's easy to feel sympathy for them. Having thrown themselves into baseball for so many years and raised the popularity of athletics in the ROC, they may have enjoyed some personal glory but generally speaking have not attained even a modicum of career security.

Once the players got involved with gambling, the gangsters had them under their thumbs. One of the questioned players said that it is hard to imagine that once the scandal blows over gangsters won't threaten to turn over past payment records unless players continue to cooperate with them. But those players in jail or being questioned are no longer of value, and the bosses who made fortunes from the games they threw, are seeking to cut all links to them, like hunters who "cook their dogs after all the rabbits are caught." If the authorities really want to get to the root of the problem, then they cannot allow the underworld bosses who pulled the strings behind the scenes to escape justice.

In response to the scandal, Chen Chung-kuang, the president of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, made a public apology and announced that the league is dismissing and paying no salary to those players in police custody, and suspending those out on bail on half pay. Those who end up being actually convicted will never be allowed to play again. At the same time, Chen announced that the league's eighth season would open as planned in Tainan on February 23. Meanwhile, on the eve of the Taiwan Major League opener, in an effort to clean up baseball's image and assure the public that the games they are watching are truly being contested, the league's coaches and players signed oaths that they would never take dirty money.

Amid the news of this scandal, it was both surprising and moving that more than 3000 passionate fans packed the stands for the opener in Luotung, despite the wind and rain. Quite a few students pedaled to the game on their bicycles to root their teams on. For another hot game in Taichung with no advanced sales, more than 1000 tickets were sold the day of the game. If the problem of dirty money can be solved, the future for professional baseball in Taiwan looks bright.

(Marlene Chen and Anna Wang/tr. by Jonathan Barnard)

Reporting for Duty-The First Women at Chengkungling

In the 19 days from 18 January to 5 February, 210 female university and college students chalked up a first by taking part in a students' winter vacation boot camp at Chengkungling in Taichung County. The camp, which was hurriedly organized at the behest of "Ideas Man" education minister Wu Ching, aroused a great deal of discussion in the military, among women's groups and throughout society.

On 18 January 1997, under the watchful eye of the domestic and foreign media, Chengkungling Training Camp's first ever batch of female student trainees reported for a "Military Training Camp for Female Students in Higher Education," to get a taste of life in the military at first hand. Of the 210 obviously nervous and excited young women, some had come to sort out their muddlesome or headstrong characters, some to satisfy a longing to experience army life, and others as a way of promoting equality between the sexes.

These female trainees, full of a sense of honor and of mission, all demanded that they should receive rigorous training. Colonel Fang Chi-min, commander and executive officer of the training camp, said that this batch of female cadets quickly found their feet from the first day. They performed no less well than male student trainees, and as far as possible they would receive the same training. The program's content was devised jointly by the ministries of education and national defense. Training started with basics like how to sit in military style, recognizing military ranks, arranging one's bedding, pep talks and army songs, and went on to include basic individual drill training, firearms aiming and live fire training, night maneuvers, simulated under-fire training and so on. Some special extra courses were also added: women's self-defense training, seminars on relationships between the sexes, classes on international etiquette, and visits to defense installations.

Although the training was as far as possible the same as that given to male trainees, there were still many details of the camp which were especially designed for women. For instance, Chengkungling's sick bay laid in a stock of women's sanitary supplies; a fax machine was provided for the trainees to fax letters home and for contacts with the media; the mess made smaller-than-usual mantou (steamed bread rolls) to cater to the female trainees' smaller appetites; and because females are less physically strong and tend to be more nervous, there were no night-time musters and the physical training program was slightly modified. Also the showers were specially divided into cubicles, and dressing rooms and separate, closed-off clothes drying areas were provided. To ensure the female students' safety, barriers were erected and sentries posted at all the entries to the camp. On the day the students first reported for training, the military at Chengkungling mobilized over 100 people to assist with security and to direct traffic. One male trainee exclaimed: "Male and female really aren't equal!"

On the morning of 27 January, at the training camp induction ceremony, the education minister, "Ideas Man" Wu Ching, was in radiant high spirits despite having been lambasted over the female soldier training program by academics, the media, members of the women's movement and even the Control Yuan. He was very moved to see with his own eyes how in just a short 10 days these female trainees had gone from squeamish, coddled girls who didn't know the meaning of discipline, to "modern-day Hua Mulans" with neat, coordinated movements and a high level of morale (Hua Mulan was a woman who reputedly served in the army in ancient times). In his address, Wu said that having received letters of support from trainees the previous week, and now seeing such good results, he was very touched, because he really had done something no-one else had done before, and had seen the female trainees making history. He also said that the cost of the camp-one of the points of controversy-had been only NT$4 million, and certainly not NT$30 million as some had claimed. He believed the investment was worthwhile, for the significance of the exercise went far beyond simply sexual equality and communal living.

While the controversy about the female training camp still raged on among scholars and experts and in newspaper letters pages, this first batch of female cadets had already completed their training. In an inevitably emotional and moving ceremony on 5 February, they took their leave of each other and went away with memories to last a lifetime.

Should female college students go to Chengkungling? Is it a good idea? Should there be further such camps? Is the issue one of sexual equality? Or is it one of questions about military service which it is only right to raise in this day and age? After finishing their training, some trainees immediately went to take part in a discussion entitled "Do female students need military training?" organized by legislator Pan Wei-kang. However, the discussion reached no consensus. The trainees felt that they had gained a great deal, and that the public should give their support to the organizers-the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of National Defense. But academics tended to the view that the activity was a shallow publicity stunt, and had no real significance in terms of sexual equality or educational reform. As for the general public, according to a newspaper opinion poll 55% assessed the camp positively, while 25% came out strongly against it. Perhaps the effectiveness of the training itself is secondary-just by attracting such wide attention and prompting such serious thought, it has already been well worthwhile!

(Marlene Chen and Anna Wang/tr. by Robert Taylor)

Controversy over Nuclear Waste Shipments to North Korea

The debate over the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant has just come to a close, but now the problem of nuclear waste disposal has again made Taiwan Power Company a target of protest. At home, Taipower is now being denied permission to use a number of domestic disposal sites. And abroad, the selection of North Korea for off-shore disposal has brought strong protests from South Korea, international media and environmental groups.

After North Korea took the initiative to open negotiations with Taiwan, on January 11, with the support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), Taipower signed an agreement with a company representing North Korea. It is expected that 60,000 barrels of low-grade nuclear waste will be shipped in the next two years to a storage site about 60 kilometers from the border with South Korea.

Taipower officials say that shipment of such low-level nuclear waste does not violate international safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation. Nor is it like nuclear fuel, whose disposal would require the agreement of the US. Still less is there any need to apply to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The contract between Taipower and North Korea is completely consistent with relevant international and domestic regulations.

Taipower also held talks with the Marshall Islands and with Russia. But the former requires a new storage facility, while the latter is relatively remote for transport. North Korea has 50 years of experience with nuclear power and has a site that has long been used for waste disposal for many years. Taipower is very satisfied with this agreement. It describes the cost as "very reasonable," and does not rule out the possibility of increasing the amount of waste to be shipped to North Korea in the future.

Taipower now has 160,000 barrels of nuclear waste. The agreement with North Korea for 60,000 barrels will help ease the pressure on Taipower to meet the deadline of the ROC Atomic Energy Council to end all storage of low-level nuclear waste at the First Nuclear Power Plant by 1999.

On January 18 the government of South Korea made a statement deploring the waste disposal agreement and said that, if necessary, it would go to the United Nations to try to block it. Officials said the international community should condemn Taiwan for buying off destitute North Korea.

On February 22, the South Korean Foreign Minister warned that South Korea would take political and economic measures to stop Taiwan from shipping waste to the North, raising the temperature of the dispute.

With regard to these unexpected developments, Taipower chairman Chang Chung- chien emphasized that the contract fully conforms to international regulations, and so Taipower would not bow to South Korean pressure.

On the 24th, South Korea's representative in Taiwan held a press conference to reiterate South Korea's determination to block the agreement. That afternoon the ROC Foreign Ministry made an equally strong rebuke, affirming that Taipower's position was justified.

With the two countries at an impasse, the following day the South Koreans called in the US ambassador in Seoul to seek international help. However, the US State Department stated that Taiwan's waste shipments to North Korea conformed to international standards, and there were no safety concerns. The MOEA then added that the shipments were a commercial matter only between Taipower and North Korea, so the MOEA would not interfere. Taipower reiterated the legality of the agreement and said that it could not give in to South Korean pressure or else it would never again have credible standing to negotiate waste disposal deals with other countries.

Official and public opinion in South Korea grew increasingly emotional over time. The Koreans argue that waste shipments not only endanger the health and safety of residents of the Korean peninsula, but also aggravate tensions between the two Koreas and affect relations with Japan and the PRC. South Korean environmental activists not only went on hunger strike and burned the ROC flag and effigies of President Lee Teng-hui in protest, some South Korean environmentalists came to Taiwan to directly protest at the Taipower building.

This in turn sparked a wave of counter- protests by Taiwan patriotic groups, raising nationalist emotions and damaging the traditionally close relations between Korean and ROC citizens.

In this affair, the ROC government and Taipower are on firm ground in their legal, procedural, and technical arguments about this "commercial matter." But from the point of view of international goodwill and the natural reaction most people have toward anything nuclear, it might have been best to give more attention to the issues raised by concerned observers. For example, Michael Kau, a scholar at Brown University in the US, and Fang Chien, a well-known environmental activist, pointed out that no one wants nuclear waste in their back yard, and disregarding the sentiments of a neighbor does not conform to Chinese ethics. Moreover, North Korea is not democratic, so people cannot oversee the regime and no one knows whether the waste will be safely stored or not. Also, is destitute North Korea's acceptance of the "business" of waste disposal not a manifestation of inequity of wealth among nations? Not to mention the fact that the people of North Korea have no right to express their own opinion! We should have empathy and understanding for the concerns of the people of South Korea.

Yet, Taipower is not in the wrong. In a recent meeting with Taipower officials, the IAEA talked over the deal in detail and did not express opposition to it. But this is not a simple commercial mater. The details of waste management, the sensitivity of international politics, and nationalist sentiment must all be patiently talked through. We look forward to a resolution to this issue that is acceptable to everyone.

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Women on the "battlefield"? The training camp aroused controversy even before it began, with many people questioning whether it was worth spending so much money just to let these students "play soldiers." (photo by Cheng Lu-chung)