Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) and KMT Culture and Communications Committee director Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) yesterday reported President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Presidential Office Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) to the Control Yuan over a “disproportionate” image of the Republic of China (ROC) flag on the Presidential Office’s Web site.
The complaints were received by Control Yuan member Chang Kuei-mei (仉桂美).
The flag’s length and width should be in a ratio of three-to-two, according to the National Emblem and National Flag of the Republic of China Act (中華民國國徽國旗法), but the image on the office’s Web site has a ratio of 17-to-nine, Chung told reporters outside the Control Yuan.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chung said that Ko had been indifferent toward the issue, despite being notified of it three days earlier, failing in his duty to “correct” the office over its infraction, in accordance with Article 18 of the act.
Chung said that when he informed Ko of the matter, Ko told him not to “create ideological conflict.”
It is Ko who has been creating ideological conflict by protecting Tsai over her besmirchment of the flag, Chung said, adding that Ko’s stance on the matter was “reproachable.”
He accused Ko of currying favor with pan-blue camp voters with his political rhetoric, such as Taiwan and China being “one family across the Taiwan Strait” and that they have a “shared destiny.”
“However, when the national flag is thrown out of proportion, he accuses the KMT of creating ideological conflict. Ko Wen-je, you are unworthy of the title of Taipei mayor,” he said.
Hung said the office spent millions of New Taiwan dollars renovating its Web site, but when the KMT found the problem, it told the media and the public that there is nothing wrong with the image.
Tsai is either overriding the act or protecting the company that built the Web site, Hung said, adding that the image has not only caused Tsai, but all Taiwanese to lose face.
The Presidential Office dismissed the complaints as politicking and a waste of public resources.
The Web site contains a thorough introduction to the national flag, it added.
The Taipei City Government said that Article 18 of the act governs factories or stores that manufacture or sell faulty flags.
The Taipei mayor does not have the authority to intervene in the issue, the city said, adding that the KMT should take the matter to the proper government agency.
Additional reporting by CNA
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