Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) office filed a defamation lawsuit yesterday against Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) implying Ma served as a "professional student" for the party when he was at Harvard University.
In Taiwan, the term "professional student" usually refers to those who studied abroad on KMT scholarships and worked as campus spies for the party, reporting on pro-independence Taiwanese students.
Shieh made the accusations on Monday at an event marking the 26th anniversary of the death of Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was found dead at National Taiwan University after being questioned by Taiwan Garrison Command officers in 1981.
Shieh said that Chen and other Taiwanese studying abroad had been put on the KMT's blacklist because they criticized the party.
The KMT's student spies should be held responsible for any deaths of those they reported on, Shieh said.
Ma should explain whether he had monitored the activities of Taiwanese students and collected information for the party while he studied law at Harvard from 1974 to 1981, Shieh said.
Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) filed the lawsui and urged Shieh to provide solid evidence to back his claims.
"Please show us solid proof when making accusations rather than spreading rumors," Lo said at the Taipei Prosecutors Office.
Shieh's remarks were part of a smear campaign by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Lo said.
However, Ma's integrity and efforts to fight for Taiwan's economy would not be affected by DPP's accusations, Lo said.
"We will sue every single person who spreads rumors and smears Ma's reputation," he said.
Ma has previously been accused of working as a student spy by several pro-independence activists and DPP members, including Vice President Annette Lu (
Lu made similar accusations in 1998 during the Taipei mayoral election, alleging that Ma had served as the editor-in-chief of Boston Periodical, a student publication organized by the KMT.
Ma used that position to write articles opposing Taiwan's independence and reported on the activities of pro-independence students to the KMT, Lu said at the time.
Chen and other DPP members accused Ma of taking pictures at a pro-independence rally in Boston in 1978 initiated by Lu and other Taiwanese students.
Ma has always denied the accusations and urged the DPP to provide solid proof.
"He [Ma] was a typical `professional student.' It is not difficult for you to find out whether I am telling the truth or not," Shieh said.
Quoting an article in Biographical Literature magazine published in June last year, Shieh said that when Ma was doing his internship in New York in March 1981, he wrote an 84-page article about "terrorism and pro-Taiwan independence" in English for the government to use as propaganda against pro-independence activists in the US.
The article, titled "Ma Ho-ling, Ma Ying-jeou, the father and son, and the Revolution and Practice Institute of the KMT," was written by Roger Hsi (
Ma Ho-ling (
The Revolution and Practice Institute was renamed the National Development Institute in 2000.
"Ma also is quoted as saying: `I came here for my graduate school with KMT's Chungshan Scholarship so it is natural for me to do something in return,'" Shieh said. "These quotes can be read in the magazine."
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification