The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee on Thursday launched its online Party Real Estate Database, which contains more than 1,000 properties linked to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The database, which operates under a query system, was created in compliance with a rule in the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), which says that the acquisition and transfers of properties by political parties or their offshoots must be fully disclosed, the committee said.
The database is the most comprehensive on properties held by the KMT to date, it said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
During the authoritarian era, the means by which the KMT obtained its properties were often shrouded in secrecy and data on assets declarations were either esoteric or incomplete, it said.
Using the historical data it has collated, people now have access to intelligible data on the KMT’s acquisition or transfers of properties, it said.
The Web site lists 23 “notable cases,” including the building housing the former KMT headquarters in Taipei, which the nation inherited from the Japanese colonial era’s Taiwan governor’s office.
The Da Hsiao Building on Aiguo E Road in Taipei was acquired by the KMT in an auction using a proxy and later rented out by the party for profit, the Web site says.
A property on Taipei’s Linsen S Road where the National Women’s League is headquartered was bought with tax funds, the site shows.
The party gave itself a plot of state-owned land that was expropriated during party-state rule and houses the KMT’s New Taipei City chapter, it shows.
The KMT Taitung Chapter was built on land previously owned by a farmers’ association, but the party got it for free, the Web site shows.
The KMT borrowed the building that used to house its now-defunct culture work committee from members of the public and paid rent for a brief period, before occupying it, it shows.
The database is the fruit of more than 5,000 hours of collaborative work between researchers and students of land economics, the committee said.
The committee has since 2016 been investigating and disclosing information about KMT assets and this dedicated effort made the database possible, the committee said.
Through the disclosure of information previously deemed inconvenient, it would not only guarantee people’s right to the truth, but also improve understanding of transitional justice, thereby bolstering the nation’s democracy, it said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS