Politicians and pundits slammed former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate, for allegedly linking up with people with criminal records, politicians convicted of vote-buying, and gangsters in regional offices, following reports yesterday that two TPP executives in Taipei are members of Chinese secret society Hongmen (洪門).
Internet celebrity Liu Yu (劉宇) and others alleged that current heads of the TPP’s Taipei offices in Zhongshan (中山) and Songshan (松山) districts, Chen Ta-yeh (陳大業) and Wang Chen-hung (王振鴻) respectively, are members of the Saint Wenshan Group, Hongmen’s largest network branch in Taiwan.
The accusations came days after TPP executives in Tainan last weekend endorsed the candidacy of Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan City Council speaker, who is running as an independent for a legislator seat.
Photo: screen grab from the Facebook page of Liu Yu
Lee and his aides in campaign rallies said: “TPP Chairman Ko gives his full support to Lee.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members in Tainan said that Lee has a bad reputation as a “politician closely associated with [black gold, 黑金] money bribery, influence peddling, and illegal gangster activities,” and was relieved of his duties as council speaker and councilor positions, after he had been convicted of vote-buying in two separate cases.
Lee served a nine-month prison term and was deprived of his civil rights for three years.
Wu Hsin-tai (吳欣岱), the Taiwan Statebuilding Party’s Taipei chapter director, lashed out at Ko in a post yesterday.
Wu said, the public should be wary of Ko’s “pro-China ideology,” citing Ko’s statements that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same family.”
“No wonder Ko admitted that China wants him to run for Taiwan’s president. So we see the TPP is attracting members of organized crime and people advocating for Beijing ruling Taiwan,” Wu said. “Clearly, Ko and the TPP are ideal partners in China’s ‘united front’ campaign in Taiwan.”
She said that Hongmen started in the Qing Dynasty as a Chinese secret society, turned into a triad organization, with a strong presence in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and overseas chapters in many other countries.
Saint Wenshan is Hongmen’s largest network in Taiwan and it promotes the concept of a Chinese “motherland,” and denies what it calls Taiwan’s “separatist movement,” Wu said.
“The TPP’s local offices are fronts for Chinese ‘united front’ propaganda, so we demand Ko to explain this to the public, and the government to check into it, as it has become a national security threat,” Wu said. “People need to know, has the TPP — besides signing up as members and taking up chapter head positions — been receiving any financial support from pro-China organizations, and external sources?”
Meanwhile, Liu Yu and other whistle-blowers posted on social media alleging that TPP members in Taichung and Tainan and Yunlin and Chiayi counties, along with other cities and counties, have been involved with gangs and people with criminal records, with some convicted of crimes such as assault, running loan shark and debt-collecting operations, including a TPP city councilor candidate surnamed Wang (王), who operates an illegal gambling site and was convicted of assault causing bodily harm.
The TPP released a statement yesterday saying the two Taipei chapter executives named in news reports have promoted local businesses and have served at social welfare organizations for benevolent activities, and the party would protest the “distortion” and “wrongful reporting” by the media.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS