Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said yesterday that an incident involving a GIO official who allegedly wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese should not be blown out of proportion.
Su made the remarks after being asked by reporters whether the government should apologize for the alleged indiscretion by Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), the acting director of the information division at Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers allege that Kuo wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese in articles penned under the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽).
The GIO transferred Kuo back to Taiwan and referred him to the Judicial Yuan’s Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries for investigation.
‘APPROPRIATE’
Su yesterday said the GIO’s handling of the Kuo incident was “appropriate,” as the GIO could not determine by itself whether Fan was Kuo’s pen name given the discrepancies between the GIO’s findings and Kuo’s side of story.
The GIO has come under criticism for its handling of the case.
Back in 2002, then-Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) offered an apology over a slip of the tongue by Wu Meng-teh (吳孟德), then director of the Public Works Bureau, for saying that the flooding that had hit the city that summer was the result of “there [being] too many Mainlanders.”
Wu subsequently stepped down to take responsibility.
Citing Wu’s case, reporters yesterday asked Su whether the government would take more actions to quell the uproar caused by the Kuo incident.
Su said that Kuo’s position was protected by laws regulating civil servants.
“[The punishment given to] Kuo could have been more severe if Kuo had been a politically appointed official or my personal secretary [rather than a civil servant],” Su said, adding that “if I offered an apology [for the incident] now, it would be tantamount to a conviction for Kuo.”
DPP
Su said that most of the articles by Fan were written between 2005 and 2007, when the DPP was in power.
“I have been reluctant to mention the fact that the articles were written during the DPP government. As I am now GIO minister, I don’t want to implicate [the former DPP government] in the Kuo affair, but the case should not be blown out of proportion,” Su said.
At a separate setting yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said he had instructed all ministry personnel stationed abroad to be strictly mindful of their conduct and speech while representing the country and that he personally believed Kuo had “entirely stepped out of bounds.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS