The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday downplayed a local media report alleging that a KMT heavyweight was seeking to sell off party properties and the state-owned Grand Hotel to a US casino tycoon.
“The Grand Hotel belongs to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. The party has no association with the hotel — let alone trying to sell it,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Lee Ming-hsien (李明賢) said yesterday.
The content of the report is clearly unsubstantiated, Lee said, without elaborating.
Lee was responding to a report published yesterday in the latest issue of Chinese-language Next Magazine, which said that a high-ranking KMT official approached a Las Vegas casino magnate visiting Taiwan, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Taipei on Mar. 9, to sound him out about purchasing three KMT properties and the Grand Hotel.
The Grand Hotel is affiliated with the “Taiwan Dunmu Association,” a private organization established in 1961 by KMT heavyweights that is overseen by the transport ministry.
Grand Hotel chairman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) is a former director-general of the KMT’s Culture and Communications Committee.
The three properties allegedly include the KMT’s 500 ping (1,652.9 m2) plot of land used for the C1 building in the Taipei Twin Towers project, the New CB Party KTV building in Taipei’s Ximending (西門町) area, and the first to third floors of a building on Taipei’s Changchun Road.
These properties were put up for auction by the KMT earlier this year, with a combined floor price of NT$8.4 billion (US$257.47 million), the magazine said.
“Because the US tycoon still harbors hopes that the Taiwanese government plans to legalize casino gambling, the main purpose of his trip to Taiwan this time was to acquire hotels,” the report said, citing an anonymous whistle-blower.
As the magnate was worried that he might be receiving problematic KMT assets, he consulted a Taiwanese acquaintance, who talked him out of the deal.
“The new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government is set to be sworn in in two months. Given growing calls for the recovery of the KMT’s ill-gotten assets, what the party is trying to sell now is most likely its controversial properties,” the magazine quoted the Taiwanese man as saying to the US tycoon.
The magazine said the KMT heavyweight has close ties with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and once served as a county commissioner in northern Taiwan, while the US magnate owns a listed company that is worth US$12 billion.
When reached for comment, DPP Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) said it is apparent that the KMT is seeking to sell off prime properties before the DPP administration takes office.
“That is why we should expedite the passage of both the draft bill governing party assets and the transitional justice promotion act, which calls for the freezing of any party properties deemed ill-gotten before subjecting them for further evaluation,” Tsai said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS