The KMT yesterday said PFP Chairman James Soong (
"The Chung Hsing Bills Finance case has nothing to do with Soong," said head of the KMT Administration and Management Committee Chang Che-chen (張哲琛) at a press conference yesterday. "The misunderstanding between the party and Soong over this matter is now over and comes to a close."
Held at the KMT's headquarters, the purpose of the press conference was to clarify accusations the party once made against Soong over his alleged embezzlement.
The accusation was made three years ago when Soong was expelled from the KMT for running his own maverick campaign in the 2000 presidential elections. Soong, who ran as an independent, obtained 36 percent of the vote, while Lien, the KMT candidate, came in at a distant third with 23 percent.
During the campaign, the KMT filed a lawsuit against Soong, accusing him of embezzling large sums from party coffers during his tenure as the party's secretary-general. After the election, prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to try the Chung Hsing Bills Finance case and the KMT dropped the charges.
It was during that time that the KMT ran a series of negative advertisements targeting Soong's credibility.
"The KMT is deeply sorry for having caused any inconvenience or damage to Soong because of remarks made by KMT officials during the [2000] presidential election," Chang said.
Chang explained Soong's alleged embezzlement by saying that the transactions Soong was involved entailed funds entrusted to Soong by former party chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to perform various task on the party's agenda.
With regard to another accusation made by the party during the 2000 presidential campaign that Soong had embezzled government money while serving as Taiwan provincial governor, Chang explained that the accusation "was a result of being unfamiliar with government financial allocation procedure."
Chang said that the party's accusation against Soong with regard to embezzlement "has all been a result of misunderstanding."
"The KMT hereby makes the clarification to clear Soong's name and hopes that both parties can let bygones be bygones and move ahead in good faith to work together for a better tomorrow for Taiwan," Chang said.
Media speculation suggests that the KMT made the effort to clear Soong's name as a peace offering to Soong to get him to agree with the KMT's preference for fielding KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) as the presidential candidate.
Denying that the clarification of Soong's charges was motivated by next year's presidential elections, Chang stressed that the only reason behind the party's motive to make the gesture was to let the truth be known.
On behalf of Soong, Chen Cheng-sheng (
Chen said that "Soong has never embezzled a dime from the KMT nor the government and is glad that the KMT's remarks have cleared his name which had been tarnished by the party's previous accusations."
Chen added that "Soong is willing to let bygones be bygones and will now move ahead with his eyes focused, not on the past, but on the future."
Also see story:
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS