Casino Mogul’s Frontman in China Is Focus of Inquiries
By MICHAEL LUO, NEIL GOUGH and EDWARD WONG
Questions over a casino company’s payments to its Chinese representative
highlight how often politics and profits are intertwined for Sheldon
Adelson, the company’s founder and a major Republican donor.
台灣來鴻：馬祖開賭!
更新時間 2012年7月12日, 格林尼治標準時間13:30
是否在馬祖開設賭場曾經引起全台灣的關注和激烈辯論。
由台灣控制的閩江口小島馬祖，居民通過了台灣第一個＂博弈公投＂，使得這個由三十多個島礁組成，總面積不到三十平方公里的小島，即將成為台灣第一個合法賭場開設地點。
在幕後積極推動此一賭場計劃的，是有開發澳門與新加坡賭場經驗的前金沙集團要角威廉懷德，據懷德集團的規劃介紹，曾被蔣介石視為＂反攻跳板＂的馬祖未來將搖身一變成為像澳門那樣的繁華賭城。這意謂著馬祖人在公投通過賭場後，不僅家園將在懷德集團興建大學，造橋鋪路等一系列投資下繁榮進步，且未來不用工作每個月就可領取懷德公司發放的現金。
此一美景聽來就像是夢幻般美好的令人不敢置信，而反對賭場的民間團體說，懷德公司承諾的未來的確是一場夢，人們也不應相信。
研究賭場行業的學者則以美國拉斯韋加斯的數字分析指出，要達到懷特宣稱的80,000台幣福利金發放，馬祖賭場的經濟規模至少要設立23家賭場。
政府態度
姑且不論這些美景其是否是懷德集團過於美化的宣傳，從現實層面看，即使其有心造福馬祖鄉里，路途看來也還相當遙遠。
懷德集團的計劃是在五年內將馬祖打造成＂亞洲地中海＂，雖然在公投獲得通過下，成立賭場在法律上不成問題，但台灣的中央政府在其它條件上對此潑了冷水。
內政部長李鴻源說，馬祖要在五年內成立國際渡假村賭場，必須要先克服交通、水、能源及腹地等四項先天條件不足的問題。
這些先天條件許多方面需要台灣中央政府配合，在台灣財政惡化政府債台高築下，當局是否會花費巨資進行這些相關條件的改善，令許多人打上了問號。
除了這些先天條件因素外，李鴻源指出的另一個問題是台灣從沒有設立賭場特區經驗，在中央政府陌生、馬祖地方政府規模太小難以督管下，對涉及巨大利益的賭場特區如何管理也成問題。
相對於中央政府這種似乎不太熱切的態度，馬祖縣政府相對則積極許多。縣長楊綏生也因此被反賭場活動人士向廉政署檢舉貪腐。檢舉者質疑縣政府違反行政中立，在公投前利用官方媒體等種種渠道，高調支持＂空頭公司＂懷德集團。
雖然懷德集團表示將在馬祖投資600億台幣，但檢舉者質疑懷德已脫離金沙集團，其＂懷德集團＂在美國總公司資本額僅一萬美元，在台分公司的資本額僅一百萬台幣，是否有能力達成各項承諾。
此一公投雖然獲通過，但目前台灣政府的廉政署已接受了檢舉，正在調查其是否涉及被指控的＂期約賄選＂行為。
賭場陰暗面
馬祖在進行設立賭場公投前曾舉辦了一場公聽會，在公聽會上贊成與反對設立賭場者，各自發表了其看法。
贊成設立賭場者認為這是一個各方全贏的好點子，不管是政府稅收增加，馬祖得到發展，財團投資獲利，這場賭局沒有輸家。
但從反對設立賭場的專家證詞看來，光鮮亮麗的賭場有不少陰暗面。研究賭場行業的台灣東華大學教授葉智魁在公聽會上說，除極少的例外，多數開設賭場的國家都是財團及政客得到好處，大多數當地商家及人民受害。
他以開放賭場的美國例子說，賭博財團一般會通過政治獻金買通民代與政客，並用賄賂送禮等方式買通官員及警察等執法人員，美國不斷傳出有州長、市長及賭場管理委員會官員，因涉及與賭場相關利益之事而被起訴判刑。
葉智魁另外在接受網絡電台採訪時並指出，賭場被當成振興地方經濟的想法是一種迷思，對地方經濟其不僅無法振興且還會扼殺。
他說為吸引賭客留在賭場，賭場提供的各種低價飲食娛樂服務反而衝擊了當地商家，以美國東岸大西洋城賭城為例，大西洋城在開賭三年後，原本的餐館倒閉了三分之一。
賭場經驗
學者談到的這些賭城陰暗面，也許從遊客的角度出發不易察覺，以我到拉斯維拉加賭城或澳門旅遊的經驗來說，也是如此。
走在這些賭城的街道上，目不暇接的宏偉賭場建築令人目眩神迷，無論是拉斯韋加斯街道上的＂火山爆發秀＂或是澳門的精採水舞，更是整點一到就讓人們免費觀賞。
說到賭場的免費，想起了多年前英國拳王劉易斯與美國拳王泰森對戰時在倫敦的一夜。
當時與朋友相約，到倫敦市中心的一家賭場觀看此一在家觀看要付費的Pay-per-view拳王對決，除了享受巨大屏幕外賭場還供應飲料，當然一切都是免費。
不記得從那裏聽到一句頗富哲理的話＂免費的最貴＂，而那一夜讓我們印證了此言非虛。
SleepyTaiwan isles face dicey $2 billion makeover
In this Aug. 20, 2012 photo, from the 220-meter (670 feet) summit of
Mt. Bi, visitors look down on the airport’s single runway jutting out
into into the sea on Beigan in the Matsu island group, off northern
Taiwan. In early July some 3,000 Matsu residents voted 57 to 43 to
permit casino gambling. Their votes were clearly influenced by the
promises of not only a casino, but also a tourist resort, expanded
airport, roadway infrastructure, a university, and perhaps most alluring
of all, a monthly payment of 80,000 New Taiwan dollars ($2,666) for
every resident.
Photo: Wally Santana
/ AP
PETER ENAV, Associated Press
Updated 5:19 a.m., Monday, September 10, 2012
all recognition.
In July, some 3,000 Matsu residents voted 57 to 43 to permit casino gambling in this onetime Cold War flashpoint, immortalized during the 1960 American presidential campaign when John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon traded barbs over possible American aid in the event of an attack from mainland China, just 16 kilometers (10 miles) to the west.Their votes were clearly influenced by the promises of American businessman Bill Weidner, who pledged not only to build a new casino, but also a world-class tourist resort, a vastly expanded airport, a 3-kilometer (2-mile) bridge linking Matsu's two main islands, a university designed to train some of the 5,000 people needed to run the facilities, and perhaps most alluring of all, a monthly payment of 80,000 New Taiwan dollars ($2,666) for every Matsu resident five years after the casino opens.
The choice might have seemed clear in a place with just the barest patina of industry and agriculture — in fact the barest patina of anything at all except for heart-stopping natural beauty and the presence of tens of millions of increasingly prosperous Chinese consumers just across the waters of the East China Sea.
"Of course I voted in favor," said a woman who identified herself only by her surname, Lin, as she lazily prepared hong dzao, a sorghum-based sauce that is a staple of local cooking. "With all this money how could I not?"
But to Cheng and other Matsu natives — even people who voted "yes" — the issue is anything but simple, complicated by serious concerns over the environment, and the possible introduction or drugs and organized crime into their placid island home.
"To say whether this project is either good or bad is very difficult," said Cheng, 55, proudly showing a visitor the traditional southern Chinese furniture she has painstakingly assembled in her dimly lit tea shop. "There are both pros and cons, good points and bad."
Weidner's head of Asian operations, Hong Kong-born Eric Chiu, acknowledges Cheng's worries, but said he and the company he represents will safeguard Matsu's traditional culture even as they develop a world-class casino and resort complex that will attract visitors from all over Asia.
"The key to this project is good management," he said. "And we will provide that management."
Weidner's Matsu development is part of an overall effort by international gambling moguls to take advantage of the seemingly insatiable demand of Chinese nationals with increasing amounts of disposable income to try their luck at casino gambling. The practice is banned within China, except in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, which Beijing governs under different rules. There, Chinese high rollers and slot machine addicts alike are betting billions of dollars annually.
Matsu's proximity to 40 million people in northern Fujian and southern Zhejiang provinces — to say nothing of the 23 million in Taiwan itself — make it a natural to join the list, Chiu said. He said he expects the project will draw a million visitors during its first year of operations — still 4½ years off based on the year and a half needed for Taiwan's legislature to iron out oversight details, and the additional three years required to complete construction. By year five, he said, the Matsu venture will be hosting about 4.5 million visitors, about 70 percent from mainland China. Monthly payments of NT$18,000 to each of Matsu's 7,000 residents will begin in year one, he said, rising to the NT$80,000 figure in year five, based on the expected arrival figure of 4.5 million.
That's
a very compelling lure in an area decimated by the withdrawal of upward
of 90 percent of the Cold War military garrison of more than 10,000,
demobilized in the wake of the gradual decrease in tensions with China
that began in the early 1990s.
Together with Kinmen — also known as Quemoy — Matsu is one of the two island territories chockablock that Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek retained when he retreated to Taiwan following his defeat on the Chinese mainland at the hands of Mao Zedong's Communists in 1949.
Its onetime front-line status is memorialized today in the shape of countless monuments to the bygone days of military confrontation: Tunnels for protecting vital military equipment, anti-aircraft machine guns placed on strategic hilltops, pillboxes overlooking likely routes of enemy egress, tanks and armored personnel carriers dotting the hilly landscape.
With the military garrison now only a shadow of its former self, Matsu today exists largely on the proceeds of a modest tourism industry — the county government says annual arrivals are 100,000 — and the manufacture of a sorghum-based liquor, which unlike the gaoliang produced on fellow offshore territory Kinmen, has only limited popular appeal.
Matsu's relative backwardness is plainly evident on the island of Beigan, the site of Weidner's proposed casino.
Beigan has little in the way of commerce — no department stores, no supermarkets, no markets at all in fact — only a couple of panel trucks that sell fruits and vegetables imported from mainland Taiwan. It boasts neither hospitals, clinics or even doctors, except those serving the needs of its few remaining soldiers. Its airport, which caters to three daily propeller flights from Taipei, is a leisurely two-minute walk from the somnolent village of Tangci, where the best food is probably found on the depleted shelves of the single convenience store, and the few retail outlets inhabit a complex of decaying concrete structures that are most notable for their low-wattage gracelessness.
What Beigan does have is spectacular beauty. From the 220-meter (670-foot) summit of Mount Bi, a visitor looks down on the airport's single runway jutting out into the azure blue of the East China Sea, and beyond it, a fetching stretch of golden beachfront lying just below the verdant promontory selected as the site of the Weidner casino. To the south, a rocky coastline intersects with the picturesque village of Chin Be, where several of the original stone homes have been converted into tony bed and breakfasts, overlooking the Min River estuary and the wind farm-dotted hills of southern China's Fujian province.
Zheng Yu-zhe, a 23-year-old guide at the small military museum adjacent to the proposed casino site, said it is preserving this environment that convinced him to oppose the project.
"Beigan is known for its traditional Fujian architectural style," he said. "But if you build the casino project you will have to do all kinds of land reclamation and it will ruin the environment. So I voted against."
Land reclamation is certainly part of the project, said Chiu. He said it will be necessary to expand the Beigan airport so it can accommodate hundreds of thousands of annual travelers from China, Taiwan and beyond.
"We are thinking big," he said. "We want to create a Mediterranean of Asia resort in Matsu. A destination resort."
That kind of thinking is music to the ears of county magistrate Yang Suei-sheng, whose modest office on Nangan island, Beigan's southern neighbor, and the planned site of Weidner's proposed 3-kilometer bridge, has become a beehive of activity for the casino project.
Asked why it is Weidner and not the Taipei government that will be shelling out the $400 million needed for the airport extension and the $200 million needed for the bridge, he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"The government doesn't have any money," he said. "If you wait for them to pay for this it could take another 100 years."
Cheng said it is the bridge and airport expansion that most resonated for local residents when they voted to support the project — even more than the obviously appealing promise of NT$80,000 per month.
"The bridge and the airport will make things so convenient around here," she said. "Much more convenient than ever before."
But despite voting "yes" herself, Cheng said she still worries about the impact of the project on Matsu's young people, fearing that they may end up dealing cards, or partaking in other supposedly disreputable professions associated with the gambling industry, or even worse, being exposed to crime and drugs.
"Of course our young people will have jobs now," she said. "But it will not come without a price."
Together with Kinmen — also known as Quemoy — Matsu is one of the two island territories chockablock that Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek retained when he retreated to Taiwan following his defeat on the Chinese mainland at the hands of Mao Zedong's Communists in 1949.
Its onetime front-line status is memorialized today in the shape of countless monuments to the bygone days of military confrontation: Tunnels for protecting vital military equipment, anti-aircraft machine guns placed on strategic hilltops, pillboxes overlooking likely routes of enemy egress, tanks and armored personnel carriers dotting the hilly landscape.
With the military garrison now only a shadow of its former self, Matsu today exists largely on the proceeds of a modest tourism industry — the county government says annual arrivals are 100,000 — and the manufacture of a sorghum-based liquor, which unlike the gaoliang produced on fellow offshore territory Kinmen, has only limited popular appeal.
Matsu's relative backwardness is plainly evident on the island of Beigan, the site of Weidner's proposed casino.
Beigan has little in the way of commerce — no department stores, no supermarkets, no markets at all in fact — only a couple of panel trucks that sell fruits and vegetables imported from mainland Taiwan. It boasts neither hospitals, clinics or even doctors, except those serving the needs of its few remaining soldiers. Its airport, which caters to three daily propeller flights from Taipei, is a leisurely two-minute walk from the somnolent village of Tangci, where the best food is probably found on the depleted shelves of the single convenience store, and the few retail outlets inhabit a complex of decaying concrete structures that are most notable for their low-wattage gracelessness.
What Beigan does have is spectacular beauty. From the 220-meter (670-foot) summit of Mount Bi, a visitor looks down on the airport's single runway jutting out into the azure blue of the East China Sea, and beyond it, a fetching stretch of golden beachfront lying just below the verdant promontory selected as the site of the Weidner casino. To the south, a rocky coastline intersects with the picturesque village of Chin Be, where several of the original stone homes have been converted into tony bed and breakfasts, overlooking the Min River estuary and the wind farm-dotted hills of southern China's Fujian province.
Zheng Yu-zhe, a 23-year-old guide at the small military museum adjacent to the proposed casino site, said it is preserving this environment that convinced him to oppose the project.
"Beigan is known for its traditional Fujian architectural style," he said. "But if you build the casino project you will have to do all kinds of land reclamation and it will ruin the environment. So I voted against."
Land reclamation is certainly part of the project, said Chiu. He said it will be necessary to expand the Beigan airport so it can accommodate hundreds of thousands of annual travelers from China, Taiwan and beyond.
"We are thinking big," he said. "We want to create a Mediterranean of Asia resort in Matsu. A destination resort."
That kind of thinking is music to the ears of county magistrate Yang Suei-sheng, whose modest office on Nangan island, Beigan's southern neighbor, and the planned site of Weidner's proposed 3-kilometer bridge, has become a beehive of activity for the casino project.
Asked why it is Weidner and not the Taipei government that will be shelling out the $400 million needed for the airport extension and the $200 million needed for the bridge, he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"The government doesn't have any money," he said. "If you wait for them to pay for this it could take another 100 years."
Cheng said it is the bridge and airport expansion that most resonated for local residents when they voted to support the project — even more than the obviously appealing promise of NT$80,000 per month.
"The bridge and the airport will make things so convenient around here," she said. "Much more convenient than ever before."
But despite voting "yes" herself, Cheng said she still worries about the impact of the project on Matsu's young people, fearing that they may end up dealing cards, or partaking in other supposedly disreputable professions associated with the gambling industry, or even worse, being exposed to crime and drugs.
"Of course our young people will have jobs now," she said. "But it will not come without a price."
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