Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday rejected a claim that he was involved in a sexual transaction in China a few years ago.
Political commentator Yang Hsien-hung (楊憲宏) said at a political talk show on Monday that Ko had bragged to former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) that during a visit to China someone had offered him a booklet filled with photographs of prostitutes and told him that if he wrote his hotel room number next to the photograph of the woman of his choosing, she would go to his room.
Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), was also present at the dinner in Lu’s home, reprimanded Ko for his remarks and the two had an argument, Yang said.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
Asked about the remarks, Ko said Yang was not in Lu’s home when they had dinner, adding that he could not understand what story he heard and from whom.
Ko said that he has refrained from criticizing Taipei mayoral candidates until now, but he is tired of numerous smear campaigns directed at him.
An opinion poll showed that about 20 percent of voters believed the rumor that he was involved in organ trafficking in China, he added.
“It is actually very easy to verify whether the rumors are true or not, but I am wondering why my opponents are so delighted to do it,” he said, adding that Yang’s claim was particularly “low-class.”
Chen on wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday evening that someone was trying to frame a man with an IQ of 157 — indicating Ko — of bragging about engaging in a sexual transaction in front of his wife of 22 years and other important political figures, but the person who made up the slanderous remark was not even at the scene and that the mudslinging tactic was not so clever.
Separately, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday criticized Ko for introducing the oBikes bike-sharing system to the city and causing traffic chaos with misplaced and abandoned bikes.
A large number of bikes had to be removed, due to poor management, Ting said.
He said he would ban the company from operating in the city if he is elected mayor.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) also lashed out at Ko’s management of oBikes, which have allegedly caused National Taiwan University campus to be overrun with the shared bicycles.
When a new business model emerges in Taipei, policies should be formulated with vision to work out the best way for the city, Yao said at a campaign event.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift