Chinese National Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Earlier yesterday, Ma had publicly denied having a green card, saying that "no members of his family possessed one."
In the declaration yesterday evening Ma said because his eldest daughter, Lesley Ma (
"However no other members of my family possess a US passport, not myself, my wife, or my youngest daughter, nor have we applied for one," he said.
Ma did admit that during his stay in the US he applied and obtained a green card, around 1977, in order to get student loans and employment after graduation.
He said that he ceased using his green card in the late 1980s and had applied for visas via the American Institute in Taiwan when traveling to the US, which "by American law, would be seen as giving up the green card."
"Both my wife's and my green card became invalid this way; my younger daughter, on the other hand, has never had a green card," he said. "Since both myself and my wife have given up our green cards for more than 20 years, when I was asked about it yesterday, I naturally said that I did not have a green card."
Earlier in the day, when he was approached for comment in Tainan, Ma said: "I've already answered the question and today's newspapers also ran stories with my response. No one in my family has a green card."
Ma then urged Hsieh to respond to a question he asked on Sept. 29 regarding why Hsieh could not urge the government to immediately allow direct cross-strait transportation and investment from China.
Ma said he always responded to Hsieh's questions quickly, while Hsieh failed to reciprocate.
Earlier yesterday Hsieh had raised the green card issue again.
"[Whether you have a green card] is such a simple question. Why can't Ma answer the question in person? If Ma lied about this, he should drop out of the election," Hsieh said.
Hsieh raised the same question on Sunday as he registered his candidacy, but it was Wang Yu-chi (
At a press conference held to declare his clean politics election platform, Hsieh persisted in questioning Ma, saying he would pursue the issue until Ma had provided a response.
"I didn't question Ma about the green card for no reason. Maybe he has spent the past two days trying to find a way with his lawyers to have the card revoked," Hsieh said.
"Ma keeps saying he is closely bound to the fate of Taiwan. If a presidential candidate holds a US green card or is able to apply for dependent status, it would be just like wearing a life jacket. His pledge was merely pretense," Hsieh said.
Later yesterday, after Ma had rebutted the allegations, Hsieh asked Ma to specify the date since when Ma and his family members had not had US green cards.
"Did Ma mean that he never owned a green card, doesn't have a green card now, or that his green card has been revoked?" Hsieh said.
Hsieh said his campaign office had obtained information from different informants and would make it public once it had been verified, adding that some of the information provided "quite detailed information," including the card numbers.
Meanwhile, Hsieh vowed to set up an independent government agency, modeled on Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption if elected.
Hsieh said he would also push for the passage of a series of "Sunshine laws" to create a clean political climate and advocate judicial reform.
Additional reporting by staff writer
COSTLY TECH FAILURE: More than 25,000 files for nearly 8,000 students from 81 schools were lost when system administrators updated a server, the Ministry of Education said The academic records of 7,854 high-school students have been lost due to a hard-drive failure, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The records were being stored at National Chi Nan University, which was commissioned by the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration to host a computer server of student portfolios that universities could access to evaluate their applications. Under a program introduced in 2019 for high-school students starting that year, students are to create portfolios to be used for university applications, which include their grades, extracurricular activities and other information related to their character and achievements. System administrators discovered that files were missing when rebooting
921 EARTHQUAKE: The magnitude 7.3 quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged The Central Weather Bureau yesterday received about 50,000 views on Facebook after it posted the data that it collected on Sept. 21, 1999, when the nation was devastated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. The data showed that the 921 Earthquake hit the nation at 1:47am, with the epicenter being 7km southwest of the bureau’s quake detection center in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at a depth of 8km. The quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged, with the cost of the damage estimated at NT$300 billion (US$10.8 billion at the current
British newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported that Prince Charles met with Bruno Wang (汪家興), a Taiwanese fugitive who describes himself as a Chinese philanthropist and donated ￡500,000 (US$683,522) to the prince’s charity, the Prince’s Foundation. The newspaper reported that Wang is wanted in Taiwan on charges related to money laundering and being a fugitive from justice, allegations he denies, and drew comparisons between Wang and the Russian banker Dmitry Leus. Investigation and cooperation with foreign authorities have found that Bruno Wang’s father, Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), had stashed proceeds from a scandal involving the procurement of Lafayette frigates in 61 bank accounts,
Taiwan is to begin administering the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT) COVID-19 vaccine to high-school students on Wednesday, and the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has advised that strenuous exercise be avoided for two weeks after innoculation. Recipients should watch for symptoms of myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle and outer lining of the heart respectively — within 28 days of the BNT vaccination, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said on Sunday. Symptoms include pain, pressure or tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering, or pounding heart, fainting and
RSS