Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Chuan-chiao (
The denial was in response to charges by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that Lee went to visit then Chinese vice premier Qian Qichen (
The DPP said Lee made the visit to talk about Lien's firm stand on the so-called 1992 consensus (one China, with each side having its own interpretation), direct-links, peaceful negotiation and reunification.
The DPP caucus showed a letter written by Lee on Feb. 10 last year and addressed to a "Professor Lee."
In the letter, Lee Chuan-chiao asked professor Lee to arrange a meeting between him and top Chinese officials to discuss issues related to "peace and stability in cross-strait politics, transportation and economics."
The DPP caucus said professor Lee was Lee Chin-po (
According to the DPP, Lee Chuan-chiao went sightseeing in China with his fellow caucus members on Feb. 16 last year, but Lee left the group on Feb. 21 to fly to Beijing.
"Lee Chuan-chiao met Qian in the morning of the 23rd in a hotel, and then he met the official of a even higher rank in the afternoon at that official's home," DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (
Lee Wen-chung also said that the unnamed official sent Huang Huizhen (
The DPP caucus refused to identify the official although that official was identified as someone surnamed Hu in the press release.
The DPP caucus said Chinese authorities later sent Huang to see Lien at the urging of Lee Chuan-chiao. Huang brought messages from China to Lien on March 20 last year, the DPP caucus said.
"We also know that Lee Chuan-chiao went to China again on Feb. 12 this year to see top Chinese officials about the election and the referendum," Lee Wen?chung said.
Lee Chuan-chiao first showed little recognition of the letter when confronted by the allegations but later admitted he wrote it without remembering much of the contents. He said he did not really know Lee Chin-po, but wrote the letter under the request of Hsu Chung-chin (
"After I revealed the Zanadau scandal, one day Hsu came to me to say that he had evidence about DPP scandals and said he wanted to join the blue camp. I checked and he seemed to have some evidence indeed," Lee Chuan-chiao said.
"Later he told me that he could arrange for me to meet Chinese officials like he did for DPP legislators Hsiao Bi-khim (
Lee Chuan-chiao said that Hsu asked him to write a letter to Lee Chin-po to take advantage of Lin Chin-po's connections.
"When I went to China, Hsu called and said he could arrange for me to meet the top officials, so I flew to Beijing. But I ended up seeing no one, and I just had a good time in Beijing doing sightseeing," Lee Chuan-chiao said.
He added that he went to China last week to gather evidence on illegal actions by top DPP officials.
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
‘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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
RSS