George Wang (王可富), lawyer and former legal consultant to Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌), yesterday filed suit against 13 elite members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — accusing them of breach of trust and embezzling NT$200 billion (US$6.3 billion) worth of party assets.
“Ma Ying-jeou is behind the unexplained depreciation of party assets,” Wang said as he filed the suit with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
Ma Ho-ling, who died in 2005, was Ma Ying-jeou’s father.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
Wang said he had sought meetings with Ma Ying-jeou to address the party’s lingering issues with its potentially ill-gotten assets, as well as to tackle problems associated with veterans’ pensions, but has been rejected three times.
A 56-year KMT member, Wang said that his annual membership fees were part of the party’s assets, which he said shrank from NT$200 billion in 2000 to just NT$27 billion in 2006 for unknown reasons.
He added that the KMT was wrong for appropriating public property into party assets, properties he said must be returned to the state.
Wang said that Ma Ying-jeou, KMT chairman from 2006 until early last month, and 12 other prominent figures in the KMT’s ruling body between 2000 and 2006 — including former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) — must be held responsible for the unexplained plunge in value and the damage done to members.
Wang highlighted differences among various reports of asset value, saying that former KMT treasurer Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) once estimated holdings to be worth NT$200 billion, while New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) assessment was just NT$100 billion, Wang said.
Moreover, he added, the party’s own assets report — submitted to the Ministry of the Interior in 2013 — tallied a total value of just NT$26.8 billion.
“The figure showed a steep plummet from Liu’s and Chu’s estimations,” Wang said.
Saying that no party assets were returned to the state — nor used for charity — between 2000 and 2006, Wang questioned the cause of their plummeting value.
He called on the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to summon Liu, Chu and former president and former KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) for questioning to calibrate and clarify what happened to the party’s assets since Lee stepped down as chairman in 2000.
Besides Ma Ying-jeou and Lien, Wang’s suit named former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and other KMT officials, including Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤), John Kuan (關中), Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) and Chan Chun-po (詹春柏). KMT Vice Secretary-General Lin Te-jui (林德瑞) also made the list.
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
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 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
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
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or
RSS