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.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS