-
- Where spheres of influence are concerned, the 1990s
and the 1980s combined pale in comparison with 2003, which recently thrust
into the limelight Neil M. Bush, a brother of George W. Bush.
-
- Court papers in his scandal-ridden divorce reveal
that, among other business interests, Bush received a $2 million contract
from a large Chinese-Taiwanese company called Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing.
-
- The contract hires Bush as a consultant in return
for $400,000 per year in company stock for five years. In his deposition,
Bush disclaimed expertise in semiconductors but stated that he has traveled
extensively in Asia.
-
- (Bush, who has not responded to questions and requests
for comment placed through his companies, reportedly told the AP that he
has not received the payments because he has not done the consultancy work
yet).
-
- While traveling abroad, Bush reportedly is protected
by the Secret Service.
-
- Grace Semiconductor has two founders, one a son of
the former president of mainland China. Bush received his contract from
the other founder, a Taiwanese businessman named Winston Wong (spelled
WONG, pronounced the same way).
-
- Now let's hit the reverse button.
-
- Back in the 1990s, the Clinton White House got into
trouble when Winston Wang (spelled WANG, but pronounced ``wong"),
a Taiwanese businessman, had coffee at the White House in June 1995 and
allegedly followed up by promising a $100,000 contribution to the Democratic
National Committee. People wondered, and rightly so what made a cup of
coffee so valuable.
-
- The White House took some appropriate heat. Holders
of public office, especially the highest office should not stoop to the
appearance of trading favors, even absent illegality. In consideration
for the public, they should not lend themselves to the appearance of undue
influence, and most people would consider $100,000 to be influence.
-
- Now, however, it turns out that this is the same
man.
-
- Yes, that's right; in a sterling example of don't-they-ever-learn,
Neil Mallon Bush (named after a founder of Dresser Industries, a Bush-connected
company that became a subsidiary of Halliburton) entered into a contract
with Winston Wang, the same man whose White House visit contributed to
a political tempest.
-
- Evidently the reason no one has noticed this connection
is that the last name is now spelled, in most print reports, with an ``o''
instead of an ``a''.
-
- Seldom can a vowel have been as important on Wheel
of Fortune.
-
- Winston Wang (Wong) is the son of billionaire Y.
C. Wang, regarded as Taiwan's most powerful businessman, head of mega-conglomerate
Formosa Plastics Company and married, in the old Chinese fashion, to three
wives.
-
- The younger Wang headed a large FPC subsidiary called
Nan Ya Plastics, until he was suspended from FPC after his own extramarital
affair created adverse news reports.
-
- His father refused to designate the son's girlfriend
officially as a concubine.
-
- Wong was also an early investor in Neil Bush's educational
software company, Ignite! Learning.
-
- Interestingly, the media ``conservatives" who
devoted such attention to Charlie Trie in the 1990s never actually named
either Winston Wang or Formosa Plastics.
-
- Could there have been a reason why not? In his March
1, 2000, testimony before Congress, Charles ``Charlie" Trie, who introduced
Wang to Clinton, told the House Committee on Government Reform, ``When
I met Winston Wang, he told me that he had met with President Bush when
he was president."
-
- In October 1996, a Hong Kong newsweekly also charged,
in an allegation denied by the parties involved, that Taiwan's ruling party
offered to give the U.S. Democratic Party $15 million.
-
- Come to think of it, maybe some lessons were learned.
Can it be that all that Taiwanese goodwill lying around was basically placed
in reserve, to benefit a future administration?
-
- For whatever reasons, the public never got much of
that particular red meat. Nor have we heard much recently, from the White
House at least, about avoiding even the appearance of impropriety or about
relatives of heads of state making deals with foreign companies.
-
- In fact, the truncated news reports on Neil Bush's
foreign business deals have yet to identify his business associate, Winston
Wong, as Bill Clinton's Winston Wang.
-
-
- Margie Burns, a writer and teacher who lives in Cheverly,
can be reached at margie.burns@verizon.net.
-
- http://www.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/stories/pgfp0112200419.htm
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