Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday sought to dispel a rumor that he had been a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member, saying he had never applied for membership.
“However, to say that I was never involved with the CCP would be an overstatement,” he said when asked about the rumor during a question-and-answer session with reporters during a visit to Green Island (綠島).
Lee said he wanted to erase any doubts once and for all since “my political career is over.”
As a senior at National Taiwan University who was concerned about Taiwan’s future, he organized the “New Democracy Association” with four other students from the university, Lee said.
The association was absorbed by the CCP not long afterwards, Lee said, adding that by that time he was disappointed with the CCP because “all it cared about was winning political power rather than people’s lives and the country’s future.”
Lee said he left the association and applied for a scholarship to study at Iowa State University.
He said he was very interested in the theory of socialism and understood “quite a bit” about communism, but he was not interested in the CCP.
Lee was detained and questioned by the Taiwan Garrison Command for a week in 1968 when he was a National Taiwan University professor. He said he was interrogated about his contacts with the CCP and the association.
Wu Ketai (吳克泰), a high-school classmate of Lee’s who went to China in the late 1940s and became a high-ranking CCP official, told Chinese media in the early 2000s that he had endorsed Lee’s membership application to the CCP in 1946 and that Lee had quit the party twice.
Wu, who became a member of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, died in 2004.
Lee’s alleged party membership has been reported on since he left office in 2000.
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
RSS