The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should not try to influence the results of National Taiwan University’s (NTU) presidential election and should respect the university’s autonomy, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday, amid allegations of academic misconduct by NTU president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) and a conflict of interest.
“Questions raised about the electoral system for university presidents should be discussed on a systematic level. The DPP should not interfere with universities’ operations,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) told a news conference at the legislature.
The KMT accused the DPP of running counter to democratic values when it on Wednesday filed a motion over the Ministry of Education’s budget in cross-caucus negotiations, proposing that Kuan’s inauguration on Thursday next week be delayed until the controversy has been cleared up, Lee said.
.Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Under the University Act (大學法), the ministry must hire any qualified university president who was elected legally, said KMT Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩), who is also a member of the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee.
As the university notified the ministry of the election results earlier this month, the ministry’s job was to ascertain that Kuan, a KMT member, is qualified and that the election was legal, Ko said.
However, it has allowed the issue to drag on, she said, accusing the ministry of inefficiency.
She also asked why the ministry has repeatedly questioned the election results after the university’s presidential election committee issued clarifications to prove that the election was legal.
The ministry’s stance on the election differs greatly from how it acted on a dispute over the election late last year of Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) as president of National Yang Ming University, she said.
When questions were raised about Kuo’s qualifications, who was an associate professor, the ministry said it respected Yang Ming’s handling of its own presidential election, she added.
Addressing DPP allegations that Kuan plagiarized a graduate student’s thesis, Ko said that the student listed Kuan as the author of a manuscript she referenced in her dissertation.
She questioned the need for Kuan to cite his student’s work as a source in a paper he later published, saying that the DPP should clarify whose work was referenced.
KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) panned the DPP for attempting to reverse the election result by threatening to decrease the university’s budget.
“The DPP should immediately take its dirty hands off [the university],” Chen said.
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
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FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
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