Lawmakers who allegedly leaked to the press details of a closed-door meeting on Wednesday were condemned in a resolution passed by the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
"Legislators are fully aware of the rules for closed-door meetings and whoever leaks details should be condemned. Hopefully this will make the individuals concerned behave themselves," said KMT Legislator Chen Horng-chi (陳鴻基), who is chairman of the Legislative Yuan's Discipline Committee.
Wednesday's meeting, which was called by the legislature's Budget Committee, discussed the budgets of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense and National Security Bureau, according to reports.
Half way through the meeting, reporters waiting outside the meeting room had already got wind of what was discussed inside -- that Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Hung-mao (
The information was allegedly passed to the press by lawmakers.
Publicizing the name of a potential ally doesn't usually happen because of the sensitivity of the situation. China has a policy of international isolation against Taiwan. Currently, only 29 countries maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
"China's suppression will follow once news about a new ally is publicized in advance. Past experience has shown that such a plan would simply `die on exposure,'" DPP Legislator Yang Chiu-hsing (
Yang demanded a criminal investigation by justice authorities to determine who was responsible for the leak and said if the situation was allowed to continue it could severely jeopardize Taiwan's security.
"There will be no need for the Chinese to send spies here, because there are already spies in the legislature. China can gain immediate knowledge of Taiwan's confidential budgets, confidential policy planning and confidential meetings," Yang said.
Wang Shih-hsun (
Yang and Wang said they were ready to file for an interpretation from the Council of Grand Justices on the scope of legislators' immunity.
"It is debatable whether legislators should be protected when they take advantage of their positions and leak national secrets," Yang said.
KMT Legislator Chu Li-luan (
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS