Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators filed a lawsuit against Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) yesterday, accusing him of concealing public documents by failing to disclose information on lawmakers who might hold US citizenship.
Ou, however, said he had spoken with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) shortly after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a response from the US on Monday and Wang had told him not divulge the information because the response was not as straight forward as expected.
It is against the law for ranking public servants to possess either foreign residency or citizenship.
In September, the ministry asked the US for help in determining if any lawmakers held permanent residency or citizenship after a Next Magazine report accused Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) of being a US citizen.
Lee said her US citizenship was automatically revoked when she was sworn in as a Taipei City councilor in 1994.
After meeting with Wang, it was agreed that the ministry would not make the US response public until the US could give a clearer answer, Ou said. He said the ministry had already asked the US for clarification.
Wang confirmed yesterday that the initial information from the US showed that two lawmakers might have dual citizenship.
“He [Ou] said there were two legislators [whose nationality status might be problematic], but so far [the ministry] was unable to determine whether they possessed dual citizenship,” the speaker said, declining to reveal the identity of the legislators.
Wang said Ou had given him the response from the US, but he did not read the document because it was marked confidential.
“One of them reported having studied in the US, but not applying for PR [permanent residency]. It was impossible for the legislator to become a US citizen without having had PR first, so the legislator insisted that the result was absurd,” Wang said.
He said the legislature can only deal with the nationality status of current lawmakers, while former legislators should be dealt with by the judiciary.
He did not elaborate, but former Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmaker George Liu (劉寬平) said in June that he had filed an application to relinquish his US citizenship at the end of last year, but that the process was not yet complete.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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