The National Women’s League yesterday denied that it was an affiliate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and that it exploited its connection to the party to secure financial aid and tax privileges, while the KMT accused the government of fabricating evidence in a bid to prove the alleged links.
In an investigation of possible connections between the league and the KMT during the KMT’s one-party rule, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee highlighted the predominantly KMT leadership of the league, the use of KMT government power to finance it and close cooperation between the two entities.
The league was led by wives of KMT dignitaries, most notably Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡), while the KMT government diverted revenue from a military surcharge and other taxes to the league, as well as granting it special subsidies and tax exemption privileges, a committee report said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The league collaborated with the KMT and in 1957 the then-Kaohsiung County chapter of the KMT asked the league to campaign for it in an election, suggesting a strong link between the party and the group, the report said.
Lawyer Hsu Lu-ping (徐履冰), a representative of the league, said the report was biased and that evidence in favor of the league’s position was excluded.
Although the committee cited a German political party assets law, which defines affiliates as organizations whose purpose is to solidify the party’s power, the committee did not apply this definition to the league and ignored the fact that the league had contributed nothing to the KMT’s political power, Hsu said at a public hearing yesterday.
“According to the German experience, the league is definitely not an affiliate of a political party,” Hsu said.
There is no evidence that Soong followed the KMT’s orders, while her dominant leadership style, which the committee mentioned repeatedly, is irrelevant to establishing there was a connection between the KMT and the league, Hsu said.
The league’s collection of a military surcharge and other taxes were legally grounded, and the revenue distribution was managed by the Importers and Exporters Association, not the government or the KMT, lawyer Shen Cheng-hsiung (沈政雄) said.
The league’s purpose was to build military housing and take care of members of the military and their families, not consolidating the KMT’s status, Shen said.
According to the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), a necessary condition to establish affiliation between a political party and a subgroup is that the party gives up control of an affiliated organization without receiving proportional payment, but the committee did not find any such evidence in the league’s case, KMT Administration Committee deputy director Lee Fu-hsuan (李福軒) said.
“The committee needs, at the very least, to understand the act correctly if it wants to incriminate somebody, but there is not even a single mention about [proportional payment] in its report,” Lee said.
Soong held only a peripheral position in the KMT and the league operated independently of the party, Lee said.
Lee said the committee had fabricated evidence, with a previous report misquoting a document signed by Chiang to suggest that the KMT had used government power to fund the league.
The complete abstract of the document indicated that Chiang was actually rejecting the budget proposal, Lee said.
The committee misquoted data to serve its purposes and was not willing to make corrections, he said.
In related news, the KMT said it would file an administrative lawsuit against the committee over its order that the KMT should pay NT$864.88 million (US$28.48 million) for selling properties appropriated from the Japanese colonial government.
The payment was due on Monday and failure to meet the deadline could result in the freezing of assets and detention of the KMT chairperson, who acts as the party’s legal representative.
The assets committee said it would transfer the case to the Administrative Enforcement Agency to secure payment.
The KMT would request the assets committee to reconfirm the order before filing an appeal, KMT Administration Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) said.
“The KMT has difficulties paying salaries. How can it pay such an amount?” Chiu said.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
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Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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