The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese-language United Daily News on Monday denied allegations that the newspaper was founded with KMT gold.
The denial came after former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) earlier that day called on the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to investigate the paper as a KMT affiliate.
United Daily News Group founder Wang Tih-wu (王惕吾), also a former KMT Central Standing Committee member, had received 100kg of gold from then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to establish the newspaper, Chen said.
Chen on Monday underwent inquiries as a Control Yuan member nominee along with Yang Fang-yuan (楊芳婉), Chao Yung-ching (趙永清), Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) and Yang Fang-ling (楊芳玲) at an interim meeting at the legislature in Taipei.
New Power Party Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) asked the nominees if they were committed to investigating not only the KMT, but also people who benefited from the chaos in the post-World War II period to procure national assets for themselves.
Yang Fang-ling said that while people could be investigated by the Control Yuan, the time for administering justice for asset-related violations during the period has long expired.
Yang Fang-yuan disagreed, saying that national assets that fell into private hands should be investigated because they belong to the nation, adding that the Control Yuan should seek corrective actions from the government bodies that failed to pursue the assets.
It might be difficult to pursue KMT members who have registered national assets in their own names if the party itself does not pursue the matter, Chen said, adding that the government must still investigate them.
Chen cited a passage in the book The Past Happenings of Gold (黃金往事), which said that Chiang was given 4,500kg of gold from the state treasury when he stepped down from office, then gave 100kg of the gold and some foreign currency to Wang to establish the United Daily Group, he said.
The KMT called the allegations “reckless accusations,” while the United Daily News said the claims were “baseless.”
“Chen is relying on speculation written in a book; he has no concrete evidence of anything. This paper is deeply regretful over [these assertions],” the paper said.
Wang combined the Popular Daily, the National and the Economic Times, three contemporary Chinese-language daily newspapers, to form the United Daily Group, the paper said, adding that it went through hard times at the beginning when Wang had ask different creditors to borrow money for workers’ salaries.
“Chen’s assertion that the paper’s funding came from the KMT is entirely baseless,” it added.
The Taipei High Administrative Court has already questioned the constitutionality of the committee’s operations, KMT spokeswoman Chung Pei-chun (鍾沛君) said.
“That Chen can read a book and use it as the basis for his accusations raises concerns about the future of the Control Yuan,” she said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS