President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should make a pledge to show her incoming administration’s determination to address the issue of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten party assets, academics said yesterday.
Critics have labeled the KMT’s assets “ill-gotten” because the party took them from the Japanese colonial government, private businesses and individuals when it took control of Taiwan in the late 1940s.
Despite several bills proposed at the legislature on “ill-gotten party assets,” academics said they are worried about the actual result of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) campaign to pursue the matter, as the issue is politically sensitive and highly polarized.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Lo Cheng-tsung (羅承宗) of the Zero Party Asset Alliance said the incoming Tsai administration does not have to wait until the legislation is passed to pursue the KMT’s illegitimate party assets.
He said that although the DPP was a minority in the legislature when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was in power, and there was no legislation on the issue, the Ministry of Civil Service was already checking on the KMT’s assets.
Therefore, the first thing Tsai should do when she is sworn in is to have the government continue such work based on what has already been accomplished, while updating information on the Executive Yuan’s Web site.
Huang Shih-hsin (黃世鑫), an honorary professor at National Taipei University’s Department of Public Finance, said that Tsai should clearly declare her determination in pursuing the KMT’s assets and make legislation on KMT assets a priority in the legislature. Moreover, if a commission on ill-gotten assets is created, it should immediately ask the KMT to submit relevant documents, or the party headquarters should be searched, adding that there should also be clauses to provide awards to whistle-blowers from within the party, he said.
Hsu Hui-feng (許惠峰), a law professor at Chinese Cultural University, said that as the DPP holds an absolute majority at the legislature, it should integrate different versions of proposals to take care of the issue as quickly as possible and exempt those who were involved in handling ill-gotten party assets from criminal responsibilities so that they cooperate.
Lo said organizations affiliated with the KMT, such as the China Youth Corps and the National Women’s League of the Republic of China, should be pursued as “organizations whose personnel, finance or operations are currently or have been under the control of a political party” as stipulated in the New Power Party’s proposal.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS