The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has called on members to pay “a special party fee” of NT$2,000 per person in order to “save [the party] from demise,” with KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said to be ready to pay her share tomorrow to set an example.
The KMT said it would launch events calling for the “special party fee” to protect its survival and a “NT$1,000 donation” drive on the eve of Retrocession Day on Tuesday “in order to defend the Republic of China’s (ROC) constitutional system of freedom, democracy and rule of law.”
Hung is to lead the party’s central leadership, city and county chapter officials and Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) military veterans’ branch officials to pay the special party fees tomorrow while attending a “safeguard the ROC Constitution and donate NT$1,000” event that is to be held in New Taipei City tomorrow night, which is public-oriented, as opposed to the call for special party fees made to members.
PHOTO: CNA
The party said it hopes that members and the public can support the KMT to “hold out the hand of justice” and “check a Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] regime that is marching toward fascism and green terror.”
The special party fee has been set at a minimum of NT$2,000, although members can donate as much as they want, the party said.
Members who contribute during a stipulated period — from Tuesday through Dec. 25 — would receive a letter from the party chairwoman and a reprint of the certificate for the Revolutionary Party when it was founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) in 1914 following the failed Second Revolution against Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) in 1913, “which is to symbolize the spirit of the [ROC’s] founding father in the Second Revolution by supporting the KMT in supervising an unjust and unconstitutional regime,” the KMT said.
Members of the public who participate in the NT$1,000 donation activity would be thanked with a reprint of the “receipt of the just pay of the Chinese Revolutionary Army” published by the Tongmenghui in 1911, a year before the founding of the ROC, which was issued so that revolutionary army soldiers could collect their pay.
It has been reported that some party workers have complained that the “special party fees” campaign calls for “reluctant donations” from party members, and have asked party headquarters to pay them their salaries before they donate.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) said that the event is simply an expression of the idea that the KMT can “save the party ourselves” and is not compulsory, adding that there would be no consequences for members who do not make contributions.
Additional Reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
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
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS