The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is applying a double standard when it accuses National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) of overreaching his authority, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
King visited the National Police Agency (NPA) and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau to sit in on reports meetings last week. The move has been widely condemned as King overreaching his authority, with an opposition legislator calling him an “underground president.”
KMT spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) said yesterday that overseeing national security issues is part of the security council’s responsibilities according to the law and King’s actions were totally appropriate and in accordance with the Constitution.
Chen said that the Constitution’s additional articles as well as the Organic Act of the National Security Council (國家安全會議組織法) stipulate that the council is an advisory unit to the president on national security issues, and that the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法) states that the National Security Bureau (NSB) is responsible for directing and supporting intelligence agencies.
“The NSB is under the purview of the NSC, so there was no interruption of order in the NSC secretary-general’s visit to national security-related institutions under the NSB’s arrangement,” Chen said, according to a press release.
He said that the DPP applied a double standard in committing political defamation when it criticized King, “as former NSC secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) [during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration] was involved in diplomatic projects, such as the Papua New Guinea [PNG] aid project and the ‘An-ya’ diplomatic promotion project, and had convened campaign meetings for assessing the DPP’s election outlook.”
“According to media reports, then-minister of foreign affairs James Huang (黃志芳) considered Chiou his superior and acted according to Chiou’s directives [when using monetary aid for forging diplomatic relations with PNG in 2006],” Charles Chen said.
Chiou, in his capacity as NSC secretary-general, had also convened meetings aimed at the DPP winning legislative and mayoral elections, “an act that was truly overreaching his authority,” the KMT spokesperson said.
Charles Chen added that he believes the public would not be fooled by “the DPP and certain media outlets’ egregious political machinations.”
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