Farglory Group (遠雄集團) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) yesterday called ongoing criticism over the safety of the Taipei Dome project “an unacceptable joke” and urged the Taipei City Government to enter into discussions to end the controversy.
Chao, who shuns the media these days amid allegations of a bribery scandal, issued a statement after subsidiary Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) came under attack over the project’s safety and alleged secret dealings.
Chao ceded the chairmanship to his son last year, but remains head of the conglomerate, which also owns Farglory Life Insurance Co (遠雄人壽), Farglory Hotel Co (遠雄悅來飯店), the Farglory Free Trade Zone (遠雄自由貿易港區), Taiwan Solar Energy Corp (元晶太陽能) and Golden Biotechnology Corp (國鼎生物科技).
Photo: CNA
“The entire matter has become distorted by politics, something that is terrible and forever beyond my understanding,” Chao said.
Since 2004, Farglory has recruited more than 1,000 architects, engineers and other construction experts from six nations to help design and build the Taipei Dome, a structure which could withstand the harshest of conditions, Chao said.
Chao said that suggestions that the Dome is unsafe or useless are “a joke,” one which he could not accept.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Chao denied being involved in secret dealings with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during Ma’s time as Taipei mayor to alter contract terms in the company’s favor.
“I met with the then-mayor two or three times briefly as a social courtesy, a fact that all those who were present could verify,” he said.
City councilors have questioned Ma’s decision to allow Farglory to downsize the Dome and increase commercial space, a move that is at odds with the original design.
Chao said the Dome’s floor space measures 149,066 ping (492,780m2) with a volume of 88,629 ping, compared with measurements of 165,195 ping and 96,000 ping respectively as first promised. Chao said that an independent safety inspection by a third party would help resolve any misunderstandings.
“Prior to that, the city government should refrain from criticizing the company and the construction staff,” he said, adding that Farglory would take up the government’s offer of meeting to discuss the project.
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