“I’ve spoken to my running mate, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), on the issue and we agree that this is not an election-related issue, but one that concerns the moral standards of government administrators,” Ma said.
Ma said he wanted to ask Tsai Ing-wen what her attitude toward the Yu Chang case was, asking why she did not come out and explain herself on the controversy.
“After all, the Yu Chang case is a case of important national investment and concerns everyone in the nation,” Ma said.
On Wang’s confirmation that the KMT received a political donation from the Tsai family of the Fubon Group during the 2004 election, Ma said he was not familiar with the situation as he was not KMT chairman at the time and had played no role in the matter.
However, Ma said the Fubon case was almost eight to nine years old and had been repeatedly explained, adding that the fact a press conference had to be held again to accept questions on an oft-explained case showed a politician — especially a president — could not have any moral flaws.
“Things have to be given a clear explanation and I am not afraid of being tested,” Ma said. “I hope all politicians can be like this.”
The DPP immediately countered with another press conference, in which the party disclosed what it said were the dates for six meetings between Ma and Fubon executives, on Aug. 8, 2002; Sept. 16, 2002; Jan. 3, 2003; Feb. 17, 2003; Feb. 27, 2003; and Aug. 11, 2003.
In a move seen as retaliation against the KMT’s attack on Tsai Ing-wen over Yu Chang, the DPP cited a document on the merger of Fubon Bank and TaipeiBank in 2002, classified as top secret, to challenge the KMT after the party questioned Tsai Ing-wen for classifying a document on government investment in Yu Chang as top secret when she was vice premier in 2007.
“Ma likes to talk about morality, saying that morality is imperative for any politician even if his or her actions are legal. We’re only asking these questions to expose the KMT’s double standards,” DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
Ma was questioned by many in Taipei City Council on the merger years ago, said DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青), who is familiar with the case.
“However, some of the lawsuits we filed against him had been dismissed and now he enjoys judicial immunity as president,” Hsu said.
Ma’s dealings with the merger were questionable on at least three aspects — why the much smaller Fubon Bank was able to merge with TaipeiBank, why the merger was never discussed in city council and why Ma agreed to sell TaipeiBank at a highly undervalued price, she said.
At his press conference, Ma maintained that the merger of the two banks, considered to be the first example of a merger between a government-owned bank and private bank in Taiwan, was a success story at the time, with the Taipei City Government receiving more than 40 percent of Fubon’s shares and NT$10 billion in assets.
“This is because the merger was conducted professionally and not in a closed-door manner. There was an open bidding process and five entities tendered bids,” Ma said, adding that Fubon had been chosen because of its professionalism.
Fubon paid US$2.5 billion to acquire TaipeiBank in August 2002.
Additional reporting by CNA, with translation by Jake Chung, staff writer
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