The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee has reclaimed more than NT$100 billion (US$3.13 billion) of assets that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) obtained during the Martial Law era, committee Chairman Lin Feng-jeng (林?正) said yesterday.
The committee has nationalized about NT$53 billion and 136,000m2 of land from the KMT and its affiliates, Lin said in an interview published yesterday by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) ahead of the seventh anniversary this month of the committee’s founding.
The restored properties generate NT$50 million in combined rent each year, he said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The KMT was ordered to transfer to the government its 100 percent stake in Central Investment Holdings (中央投資), which has an estimated value of NT$20 billion to NT$30 billion, he said.
The committee believes that Central Investment Holdings was founded using public funds, which justified the move to nullify the party’s ownership, Lin said.
Taiwan could learn from how Spain has dealt with local governments that refuse to dispose of icons of authoritarian figures, Lin said.
Spain ordered local governments to dispose of monuments to general Franciso Franco — who led the overthrow of the Second Spanish Republic and governed the nation from 1939 to 1975 — or face fines of up to 10,000 euros (US$10,867), Lin said.
Transitional justice in Spain has achieved measurable success in doing away with symbols of Franco, which had once been as prevalent there as busts and statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in government offices, schools and parks in Taiwan, he said.
“Where we are still struggling, they have more or less completed the work,” he said.
However, Taiwan has moved faster than Spain to return unlawfully expropriated property and wealth to their rightful owners, he added.
Spanish society in general showed more willingness to support the government in dealing with its authoritarian past, while swathes of the Taiwanese public and some groups continue to resist democratization, he said.
Last week, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled that the Chinese Association for Relief and Ensuing Services illegally gained assets as a KMT affiliate during the authoritarian period, he said.
The association used the support of the state’s propaganda apparatuses to launch donation drives and levy pseudo-taxes on movie tickets during the Martial Law era, Lin said.
It was created as an intermediary entity for diplomatic activities that the government and the KMT did not want to officially acknowledge, but the party-state tightly controlled every aspect of the group, he said.
The group was ordered to withdraw its decision to name democracy advocate Lei Chen (雷震) as a member of its board of supervisors, apparently because Chiang had a falling out with Lei, Lin said.
The committee has proof that the association’s activities were dictated by the KMT’s central standing committee of the time, he said.
The assets committee had no issue with the association using public funds to carry out official tasks, but it hoarded the resources long after the KMT party-state ended, Lin said.
Its assets were later used by a non-public actor for activities that had nothing to do with the public interest, he added.
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