{"id":2198,"date":"2026-08-04T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T14:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/?p=2198"},"modified":"2026-10-16T22:44:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:44:29","slug":"20260804-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/20260804-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Integrity"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u201cAlthough the pledge-fund account was in my name, the seal for that account was never in my hands.\u201d \u2014 The Commander\u2019s Confessions, pp. 36\u201337<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The dedicated account was in the name \u201cShih Ming Te.\u201d But the seal was not in his hands.<\/p>

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A mass movement is fluid, and its needs arise urgently and fast. In this line of work there had always been rough lump-sum \u201cturnkey\u201d budgets and \u201cspecial expenses\u201d that required no receipts. The Red Shirts allowed none of this.<\/p>

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On August 2, 2006, before the movement even had a name, the financial oversight group held its first meeting. The minutes record several decisions: the account seal would be held jointly by three people; any withdrawal required the consent of a designated member of the five-person decision-making group before the seal could be used; no cash donations would be accepted on site, and all funds were to be deposited into the dedicated account; to spare donors any gift-tax liability, no single donation of one million NT dollars or more would be accepted; all receipts would be kept; and any surplus would be donated to registered charitable organizations.<\/p>

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The account bore his name, but the seal was kept by attorney Yeh Ta-hui. He placed himself in a position of oversight \u2014 unable to touch the money, and not its keeper. The reason was simple: having stood up against the most powerful man in the country, if a single dollar could not be accounted for, the other side could have him prosecuted at any time.<\/p>

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Now look at the spending. On September 16, the pro-Chen camp held a rally that, by the organizers\u2019 own account, cost more than twenty million NT dollars in one day. The Red Shirts ran for more than three months, from September 9 until the curtain fell in December \u2014 including the 9\/15 siege, rallies blossoming in eleven cities and counties, the October 10 Nationwide Siege, and two wholesale relocations of the movement\u2019s base. Relocation is the most expensive part of any mass movement; dismantling, moving, and reinstalling the staging and sound equipment costs a great deal. Headquarters spent a little over ninety million NT dollars in all.<\/p>

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Now look at the audit. During the movement, three press conferences were held to publish the accounts, and the detailed accounts were later posted online in full for the media and the public to review. On August 31, 2007, the audit report of the Taipei CPA Association was released: a total of NT$111,195,205 had been raised. The amount found to involve a procedural irregularity in the entire accounts was NT$63,545 \u2014 payments that should have required three signatures but bore only one \u2014 and this sum was covered by headquarters staff themselves.<\/p>

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After deducting audit costs and the cost of publishing public notices, the surplus came to NT$15,670,725. A donation review panel of outside experts and scholars resolved to give the entire amount to five social welfare organizations.<\/p>

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On December 18, 2007, an official letter from the Taipei District Prosecutors Office confirmed that in the case of unidentified persons accusing the Red Shirt commander-in-chief of unclear accounts, no criminal conduct had been found, and the case was closed.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The most vulnerable point of any anti-corruption movement is always its own books. \u201cIntegrity\u201d is placed in the last chapter of this book not because it is lofty, but because it was the technical condition that made the movement possible at all.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Source: Shih Ming Te, The Commander\u2019s Confessions<\/em>, 2009, pp. 344\u2013353, 36\u201337. The quotation is from the section \u201cThe Cleanest Accounts\u201d in the author\u2019s preface; that spread carries both page numbers 036 and 037, so please refer to the printed book for the exact page. The opening of the chapter \u201cIntegrity\u201d also carries an editor\u2019s note; as editorial commentary rather than the author\u2019s text, it is not quoted here.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Want to learn more about the Red Shirt Movement and the innermost confessions of its commander-in-chief, Shih Ming Te?<\/p>

Click here to read more about The Commander\u2019s Confessions<\/em> and get your copy.<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The decision records, staff meeting documents, and images of the Red Shirt Movement are being preserved and catalogued by the Shih Ming Te Foundation.<\/p>

The Shih Ming Te Foundation needs your support.<\/p>

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The dedicated account was in the name \u201cShih Ming Te.\u201d But the seal was not in his hands. A mass movement is fluid, and its needs arise urgently and fast. In this line of work there had always been rough lump-sum \u201cturnkey\u201d budgets and \u201cspecial expenses\u201d that required no receipts. The Red Shirts allowed none of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"post_folder":[19],"class_list":["post-2198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-23"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2955,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions\/2955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shihmingte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}