Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and a lawmaker yesterday filed separate charges of treason against former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), accusing him of breaching national security by attending a Chinese military parade marking the end of World War II in Beijing on Thursday.
Lu filed the charges at the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office in Taipei, calling Lien a traitor for betraying the nation and trampling on the dignity and honor of Taiwanese.
She also demanded that Lien be banned from leaving the country.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安), leading the party’s youth wing, filed similar charges at the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office.
She demanded that the government stop paying Lien an “overly generous pension” of NT$370,000 per month for the various government posts he held throughout his career.
“Lien has sold out Taiwan for his own personal glory. He attended the event in Beijing by sitting in a section for VIPs from the ‘Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Regions.’ His action has belittled and insulted Taiwanese sovereignty and the dignity of our people,” Chou said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“At the military parade, Lien saluted and applauded the Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops and their weapons, many of which are killing machines meant to be used against Taiwanese,” she said. “This is an outrage to our armed forces and Lien will be repudiated by people of all political stripes and ethnic groups here in Taiwan.”
Citing a ruling in a case involving Chinese spy Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江), Chou said the court’s decision affirmed that the Chinese communist regime is still “an enemy of the state.”
“Lien was a former vice president, but he is now colluding with Chinese leaders to trumpet and promote propaganda for an enemy state,” she said. “Lien has therefore violated the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Criminal Code by conspiring and colluding with a foreign state intending to start a war against our nation.”
Lu said Lien should be charged and prosecuted, because he has betrayed Taiwanese and infringed on the nation’s sovereignty.
Taiwan has seen many cases of espionage wherein state secrets are leaked to China because of the judicial system’s failure to uphold the National Security Act and the lenient sentences given to offenders, Lu said.
“Lien is not the only one. There are many retired generals and high-ranking military officials who are also betraying our nation by cozying up to China. I urge them to exercise self-restraint and obey the law on national security,” she said.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
HIGH-TECH DEAL: Chipmakers that expand in the US would be able to import up to 2.5 times their new capacity with no extra tariffs during an approved construction period Taiwan aims to build a “democratic” high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnership under the new tariffs deal it sealed with Washington last week, Taipei’s top negotiator in the talks said yesterday. US President Donald Trump has pushed Taiwan, a major producer of semiconductors which runs a large trade surplus with the US, to invest more in the US, specifically in chips that power AI. Under the terms of the long-negotiated deal, chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) that expand US production would incur a lower tariff on semiconductors or related manufacturing
RSS