Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) daughter yesterday said former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) covered up a minor stroke during his presidential campaign that forced him to suspend all activities for several days.
Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), who wrote a letter to the Chinese-language Liberty Times (Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that was published on yesterday’s opinion page, said Hsieh called her father one day to say he had had a minor stroke.
Worried that it might affect the campaign, Hsieh did not visit a doctor, she said, adding that he canceled all public appearances for a while and claimed he had sprained his ankle.
The former first daughter said Hsieh was lucky in that the stroke only weakened one of his legs, allowing him to cover it up.
But his bad health prevented him from engaging in arduous campaign activities, she said.
“If it were not for his selfishness and refusal to let his running mate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) take his place, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would not have suffered such a resounding defeat,” she wrote.
“But when I later saw him on TV vow solemnly that there was nothing wrong with his health, it affected me deeply,” she wrote in her letter.
Chen Hsing-yu’s open letter came after her father’s new book, titled The Cross of Taiwan, hit shelves on Monday.
In the book, Chen Shui-bian questions Hsieh’s presidential campaign strategy and insinuates that Hsieh was responsible for the DPP’s defeat in last year’s presidential election.
In a chapter entitled “Striving upstream,” the former president said Hsieh’s health had been a problem and contributed to the election loss.
Hsieh’s office, however, said the former president was partly responsible for the defeat and dismissed Chen Shui-bian’s description of tension with Hsieh as “false.”
Chen Hsing-yu yesterday said that what her father had written about his tense relations with Hsieh was true.
The truth had emerged too late, she said, because not many people would pay attention to what a former president embroiled in a legal case had to say.
Chen Hsing-yu said her father had asked her to stay silent about Hsieh’s health, but that she had defied her father’s wishes because even her father “could not die in peace” because of the legal charges brought against him.
Why should she not speak the truth, she asked.
In addition to Hsieh’s health, Chen Hsing-yu said that her father asked her to keep quiet about donations he made to DPP members.
She said those who had accepted money from her father did not state it on their income tax returns and she was curious about where the leftover money had gone. They all swore an oath that they had never accepted money from her father.
She said that during the authoritarian era, all DPP members had dreams and ideals, but now they “lie, fabricate stories, abandon their dreams and sell their souls” to escape the crimes they have committed or hide their mistakes.
She said she hoped her father would never forget his dreams because they had kept his family going over the years and she was proud of him and always would be.
In response, Hsieh yesterday dismissed the allegation that he had had a stroke as a “groundless rumor,” saying that Chen Hsing-yu should know first-hand what damage rumors can do.
“She has been a victim, but now she has become a perpetrator,” he said.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
RSS