Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) yesterday said that he was denied a Hong Kong visa because he has been appointed a member of the Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement.
He had applied for a visa to attend a forum, one to which that several Taiwanese politicians from across party lines had been invited.
“I just received a notice from the forum organizers saying that Beijing abruptly decided to deny me a visa to Hong Kong because I was appointed as a committee member to investigate the KMT,” Yang wrote on Facebook. “What happened to Hong Kong’s self-rule and a high degree of autonomy?”
He had been scheduled to give a speech today at the forum, and he had bought his plane tickets.
“The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] stands firmly with the KMT on the party assets issue,” he said during a radio interview.
The issue of KMT assets is not something Beijing should interfere with, and the Chinese government’s move only strengthens the impression that the KMT and the CCP are partners, he said.
The CCP’s actions have been more of a hindrance than a help to the KMT, he said, citing the forced apology of singer Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) and a Chinese film dropping Taiwanese actor Leon Dai (戴立忍) because of their supposed political stances.
The KMT in June expelled Yang for vilifying the party and he was strongly criticized by KMT members last week for accepting the nomination to join the committee.
The KMT is in a difficult position after New York State’s Department of Financial Services fined Mega International Commercial Bank for contravening regulations against money laundering, including assets belonging to Central Investment Co, which is indebted to the bank.
The KMT did not try hard enough to reform the party even though many members, including himself, had called for the disposal of controversial party assets, Yang said, adding that the party’s current decline and criticism aimed at it would help the party restructure and come back.
“It would be to the KMT’s benefit if it is relieved of the assets controversy as soon as possible. Does the KMT want the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] to raise the assets issue again in the 2018 and 2020 elections,” he said.
The KMT should have helped facilitate transitional justice, and he, as a former KMT official, is responsible for carrying out such work, Yang said.
He said he did not resent the KMT for expelling him, but the party does not have a healthy communication environment.
Mainland Affairs Council advisory committee member Fan Shih-ping (范世平) and former DPP lawmaker Julian Kuo (郭正亮) — who is expected to return to the Legislative Yuan next month as a DPP at-large lawmaker — were notified yesterday that their Hong Kong visas had been canceled.
Shu Chin-chiang (蘇進強), a senior advisor at the Institute for National Policy Research, is the only Taiwanese invited to speak at the forum who was allowed to enter the territory.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS