Former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) returned to Taiwan from Japan on Saturday and criticized guests on political TV talk shows who he said had made speculative and false accusations against him.
He said that his visit to Japan was a simple family vacation, and that he would not be influenced by false allegations against him, but would continue to plan for other trips abroad.
King, known to be close to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), also said it was regrettable that the Chinese-language Next Magazine reported he was in Japan to carry out a secret mission for Ma.
The article on Wednesday said King’s visit was linked to investigations into allegations that Ma accepted a political donation of NT$200 million (US$6.4 million) from Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) in 2012.
According to King, every time he travels abroad, he files the required application for permission to travel and books a return ticket.
His travel records are available from the airlines, he said.
King resigned from the National Security Council in February for health reasons and has since been spending most of his time with family and undergoing medical treatments, a friend said.
Last month, a guest on a TV political talk show claimed that King was about to fly to the US with seven other unknown people on a secret mission for Ma, but in fact King was in Taipei at the time, as evidenced by media photographs showing him with friends at a restaurant, his friend said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods