Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday requested that party executives offer a public apology for revealing the name of the KMT member who filed a complaint about alleged illicit activities in the KMT Central Standing Committee vote on March 5.
The KMT has been rocked by allegations that Legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) bought votes so that he could play a leading role in the party’s decisionmaking body.
“Many people have heard of the vote-buying scandal involving KMT Central Standing Committee members. In my recent trips across Taiwan, everyone I met condemned what had taken place during the vote,” Lo wrote in a post.
Lo said that he was angered that that KMT Disciplinary Committee, led by Legislator Lee Kuei-min (李貴敏), which met to examine the accusations against Fu, revealed that KMT Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) was the one who filed the complaint when making its decision on Monday.
Due to “the KMT’s long-term conservative culture ... it takes a lot of courage and a sense of justice to make an internal party complaint about vote-buying. Hsu was a brave person to do so, but party executives surprised people by publicly announcing that Hsu was the whistle-blower,” Lo said.
Lo then requested that KMT executives to apologize to Hsu.
“Hsu is a valuable treasure for our party. She is willing to point out wrongdoing, so our party should be thankful to her,” Lo said.
Hsu said that the KMT should have a confidentiality clause to protect whistle-blowers.
“It was a surprise to me that the committee revealed that I had filed [the complaint],” Hsu said.
Before the vote, the media had reported on accusations that Fu and other party members had provided benefits in exchange for votes, including banquets, gifts and money.
“Party members had sent me information and evidence on this, so I put it together and sent it to the KMT’s e-mail address to file an official complaint,” Hsu said.
In Monday’s announcement, Lee said that Fu would not be punished, as there was insufficient evidence.
“Some people received inscribed plaques, which were gifts from a local fishery association. Members had received soy sauce bottles, and these were gifts from Hualien County Commissioner Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚),” Lee said.
Hsu Chen-wei is Fu’s wife.
“There were allegations of receiving money in exchange for votes. Fu explained to committee members that he is a well-known national figure and has no need to pay for people to cast ballots for him,” Lee said.
In the March 5 vote, Fu received 1,234 votes — the most among the 29 members of the Central Standing Committee.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led