Academics yesterday warned that the KMT's proposal to put its assets into trust would be a second chance for the party to launder the party's illegally acquired property. The KMT's presidential candidate Lien Chan (
The scholars said the proposal is incapable of resolving the real problem of handling assets that were obtained illegally unless the exact origins of the assets are clarified.
Tsai Tzung-jen (1/22宗珍), an associate professor of law at Tamkang University, said that the KMT had gotten its first chance to "bleach" the assets in 1992, when the Civil Organizations Law was revised to allow political parties to register themselves as a corporation.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
"Thereafter, the KMT obtained the legitimacy to control seven share holding companies and numerous assets," Tsai said.
Before that, the assets were registered under the names of individuals, since there was no legal basis for political parties to own assets.
"We must look into how the ownership of the assets was transferred to the KMT," Tsai said.
Since the trust system is designed to separate the ownership from management, the sources of the assets are left out of scrutiny.
Tsai said the problem of money politics must be resolved by "de-corporatizing" political parties to prohibit them from engaging in profit-making businesses.
"If the issue is not addressed, putting the assets into a trust will give the KMT a more solid excuse to increase the amount of its property," Tsai said.
Chang Ching-hsi (張2M溪), a professor of economics at National Taiwan University, pointed out that while much of the real estate now in KMT hands was handed over by the Japanese colonial government in the 1950's when it returned national assets to the new government, the KMT also took advantage of its political monopoly in the past to skim from government coffers.
Once transferring money from the national coffers became more difficult as the country opened up its practices to more public scrutiny, the KMT has over the past decade actively engaged in running businesses, several of which are monopolies, Chang said.
Chang said the assets should return to where they belong.
"It is meaningless to take others' property and put it into a trust," Chang said.
He said the involvement of gangsters in the political process and pervasive money politics can all be traced to the existence of KMT-run businesses.
Wang Wen-yu (?y?憰t), an associate professor of law at NTU, said even if the KMT actually puts its assets into a trust, it must spell out the purpose of the trust -- whether it is for "some specific public interests" or the pursuit of "the best investment interests."
Chien Yung-xiang (
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS