Taiwan’s Two Steps Forward, One Back Democracy

In a Taipei convenience store, five female students are buying crisps and Coca-Cola. Who is paying, one asks. Giggling, three reply with one voice: “special state funds, of course”. The joke is tinged with irritation that their president, Chen Shui-bian, could be spending government money to buy his wife French jeweler and Burberry handbags.

The case was…