Gao Si'an: The Sun Shines on Solar Panels, but Not on the Black Box of Interests
J-Media Forum | Gao Si'an Column
Photo: Screenshot from Councilor Chen Ming-ze's Facebook page.
The sun shines on Taiwan every day, but it never seems to reach into the photovoltaic interest chain.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Chen Ming-ze is suspected of threatening solar PV companies and demanding kickbacks of up to NT$10 million. The Qiaotou District Court has ordered his detention and barred him from receiving visitors. The case is still pending judicial review, but what truly shakes society is not just another politician caught up in a scandal—it is that people have suddenly realized that, in recent years, solar PV has almost periodically been accompanied by search warrants, questioning, detention, land disputes, and local protests. Society has thus begun to ask a question more important than the case itself: Is the problem in the individuals, or in the system? If every incident is called an “isolated case,” then aren’t there just too many isolated cases?
The government's push for energy transition is, in itself, an important policy for achieving net-zero emissions and energy security. Developing renewable energy is not only in line with global trends, but also a necessary choice for strengthening national resilience. Therefore, what the people truly oppose has never been green energy. What they oppose is people who, under the banner of green energy, turn public policy into private gains and turn energy transition into a way of cashing in on power.
The most ironic thing is that while the government loudly advocates “sunshine politics,” the very industry most in need of sunshine today is the solar energy industry.
A solar farm may look like just rows of solar panels, but behind it are countless administrative procedures: land conversion, soil and water conservation, agricultural land use, fish pond rehabilitation, feeder line allocation, project contracting, earthmoving and transport, local coordination, and resident protests. Every procedure involves discretion, and every discretionary decision can create benefits; wherever discretion exists, room for rent-seeking exists.
As a result, a phenomenon worthy of deep thought emerges. Some are responsible for controlling local factions, some for coordinating with residents, some for awarding project contracts, and some for administrative lobbying. The powers that should have checked and balanced one another have gradually formed a complete interest supply chain.
When public policy begins to become a new market for the competition of local power, solar panels absorb not only sunlight—they may also absorb all kinds of invisible political energy. This is the real source of people's unease.
If local elected representatives can both lead the opposition and mediate in between; if local protests can be either genuine public will or a bargaining tool; if what businesses fear most is not construction techniques but whether local power figures nod their approval—then democracy is beginning to deviate from the track it should be on. People elect representatives to supervise the government, not to monitor which company is more willing to pay.
Even more worrying is that whenever a major scandal occurs, the government has an almost fixed script: “respect the judiciary,” “neither wrong the innocent nor let the guilty off,” and “this case does not represent policy.”
These statements are, of course, not wrong. But if the same sentence is used every time, and if every time responsibility is shifted to the judiciary, then the system never has problems, policies never have flaws, and the people who truly need to be reformed will forever be just those “unlucky ones who got caught.”
The judiciary can detain suspects, but it cannot detain loopholes in the system. Prosecutors can indict individuals, but they cannot indict a failed governance model.
What truly needs to be examined is the entire solar PV governance mechanism. Has a conflict-of-interest disclosure system been established for local elected officials' involvement in development cases? Are the land acquisition, administrative review, project information, and earthwork flow of PV projects fully disclosed to the public? Are complete records kept for local coordination? Are whistleblowers genuinely protected? Has cross-ministry real-time oversight been set up, instead of society only learning that the problems have existed for years after prosecutors and investigators arrive? If not, after one councilor is investigated today, there will be another tomorrow; cut off one interest chain today, and a new one will grow tomorrow.
History has actually given the answer long ago. From sand and gravel, incinerators, landfills, science parks, and urban renewal to today's solar PV development, whenever a policy carries huge benefits without a transparency system being established at the same time, it will eventually attract power and capital to its side. The industries may differ, but human nature is always the same.
A truly mature government is not one that screams about fighting corruption only after a scandal erupts; it is one that builds the institutions before the policy begins, locks the black box, and separates interests. Energy transition is a national strategy; clean-government governance is a national capability.
If green energy today ultimately leaves people remembering not carbon reduction or net zero, but black boxes, kickbacks, political coordination, and interest exchanges, then what is destroyed is not just one politician's political life, but the social trust that matters most to the entire energy policy.
After all, what the people look forward to is a solar farm that can generate electricity for Taiwan—not a cornucopia for power to make money. What really needs to be tested by the sun has never been just solar panels; it is the power and interests underneath them, which have still not been fully exposed to daylight.
The author is a current affairs observer.
Column article; does not represent the position of J-Media.
