After weeks of insisting she could prove the US State Department wrong, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) declined to show her cards on Saturday. Her reason? She no longer holds a public post.
Lee’s lawyer announced on Saturday, as her supporters and critics alike waited with baited breath, that Lee would not go public with a document she said the State Department was still reviewing and that she claimed would prove she not a US citizen.
The argument would seem to be that as she was no longer a legislator, the public no longer had a right to know whether Lee had been breaking the law — and illegally collecting a government salary — for the past 14 years.
Saturday marked a year since the start of Lee’s most recent legislative term, and in line with a clause in the Nationality Act (國籍法) stipulating that a legislator should prove a second nationality has been renounced within a year of taking office, Lee had vowed to produce documentation to support her claims.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and others had stood by that deadline, allowing Lee more than a month after a letter from the State Department identifying her as a US citizen was made public by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮).
That grace period was a gesture many felt constituted preferential treatment by the KMT of a legislator already in her fourth term.
But not everyone has been satisfied by Lee’s attempt to withdraw from public scrutiny, including some KMT lawmakers who are aware of the potential impact of the scandal — and the caucus’ response to it — on the party’s reputation. Days after the State Department’s response was disclosed, KMT legislators voted down a DPP proposal that the Legislative Yuan examine Lee’s eligibility to retain her position.
More than a month later, after her resignation as a legislator, withdrawal from the party and continued failure to disprove the US State Department’s findings, the KMT can no longer afford to be seen as shielding Lee from public censure and potential legal penalties.
On Monday, KMT caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) said that although the legislature no longer had the power to unseat Lee or require that she present evidence of her claims, Lee should produce her proof as soon as possible.
As Lee quit her party just one day before she was to speak to its Evaluation and Discipline Committee, the KMT can no longer penalize her through that channel. Nevertheless, it needs to take a clear, if overdue, stance that Lee’s case must be followed through. If it fails to do so, allegations that Lee is enjoying the party’s protection will persist. This, at a time when concern is rife both at home and abroad that justice in Taiwan is rapidly becoming partisan.
Lee’s citizenship status was not just a matter of eligibility to stay in office. She has possibly been in violation of the law for more than a decade and, in accordance with the Nationality Act, would therefore be obliged to repay the salary she earned during those years. That sum, while unconfirmed, has been estimated at NT$120 million (US$3.3 million).
Whether or not Lee is a legislator now is irrelevant.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) is to accede to the presidency this month at a time when the international order is in its greatest flux in three decades. Lai must navigate the ship of state through the choppy waters of an assertive China that is refusing to play by the rules, challenging the territorial claims of multiple nations and increasing its pressure on Taiwan. It is widely held in democratic capitals that Taiwan is important to the maintenance and survival of the liberal international order. Taiwan is strategically located, hemming China’s People’s Liberation Army inside the first island chain, preventing it from