Supporters of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday gathered to stump for him yesterday, during which Chinese Production Party (中華生產黨) chairperson Lu Yuexiang (盧月香) revealed that she paid for China-based Taiwanese businesspeople’s flights to return to vote for the pan-blue camp during the 2008 presidential election.
The Chinese Production Party is formed of Chinese spouses married to Taiwanese nationals.
Lu, who has lived in Taiwan for 22 years, said that in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election — in which then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) ran against Democratic Progressive Party former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) — she not only helped fund the purchase of plane tickets for Taiwanese businesspeople in China who did not have enough money to return, but had also helped arrange for temporary workers to cover their jobs while they were away.
Photo: Kuo An-chia, Taipei Times
Lu said her move “touched the hearts” of about 8,000 China-based Taiwanese businesspeople who returned in 2008 to vote and brought her party more than 400 additional members.
As for China-based Taiwanese businesspeople with pan-green inclinations, Lu said she told them to “be virtuous and stay in China [and not come back to Taiwan to vote.]”
“The lies being spread about me receiving benefits from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] are false,” Lu said, adding that her party is not tied to the CCP and that her party works “for Taiwan and the continued peace across the Taiwan Strait.”
Lien left the event 25 minutes prior and so was not present when Lu made the remarks.
However, former Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) was present, attending in his capacity as the head of Lien’s supporters’ association.
Later yesterday, when asked to comment on Lu’s remarks, Lien said that he respected Lu and declined to comment further.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to clarify her earlier comments, Lu said that she had helped “two or three” Taiwanese businesspeople financially when they were down on their luck in 2008, and she has not bought plane tickets for China-based Taiwanese businesspeople to return to Taiwan this year.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS