Legislators yesterday called on a senior military figure to step down for holding a US permanent residency card for one-and-a-half years while in the top post at the Ministry of National Defense’s Department of Strategic Planning.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday reported that Cheng Yun-peng (成雲鵬), the director-general for the department, had applied for the US residency card, commonly known as a green card, prior to 2005, while he was the army’s deputy chief of ground staff.
In 2005, he passed the civil service examination and retired from the military to take up the deputy director-general post for the department, which is a civil service post.
The report said Cheng was granted US permanent residency status in January 2010, then was promoted to director-general in November that year, but held the green card until June 2011.
Ministry spokesperson Major General David Lo (羅紹和) yesterday confirmed the report, saying Cheng applied for the US green card at that time due to personal career planning.
“After the change in his job post, Cheng renounced his US green card on June 9, 2011. He submitted official documents that prove this took place,” Lo said.
Cheng said that he had planned to retire from the military and settle in the US.
He said he applied to renounce the green card status as soon as he was promoted to head up the department, and that he had not broken any law.
However, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsueh Ling (薛凌) said it was foolish to have someone in this post holding a US green card, and that the ministry was negligent in its duty in the circumstances.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) concurred that the department handles highly sensitive materials, and that the ministry must uphold its regulations, to prevent senior officials’ loyalty to the nation from being questioned.
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