Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) drew ire from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday, after he took a sick leave from a legislative negotiation on Tuesday, but was later revealed to be in Hong Kong.
Fu skipped the meeting saying he was sick, but Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) confirmed that he was abroad.
Fu wrote on Facebook that he was in Hualien County all morning on Tuesday attending events, then went home in the afternoon to recover from a bad cold.
Photo from Fu’s Facebook
That evening, he flew out to attend the Hong Kong International Travel Expo, he said, adding that he paid attention to budget negotiations in the legislature while at home.
Fu welcomed the public to cross-check his schedule and urged “those with ulterior motives” to refrain from making false accusations.
The visit to the travel expo was intended to boost travel to Hualien after the earthquake in April last year, through direct flights, he said.
Speaking on the sidelines of an unrelated event, DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) accused Fu of taking orders from Beijing.
Fu has consistently visited China before leading his caucus to launch controversial initiatives that have had a disruptive effect on governance and undermined the Constitution, she said.
In April, Fu led a KMT delegation to Beijing and met Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧).
A few weeks later, the KMT launched a bill to expand the legislature’s power, she said, referring to a bill that the Constitutional Court later partially struck down.
In December last year, he traveled to Hong Kong before returning home to propose a flurry of amendments, Wu said.
Fu “feigned illness” to visit Hong Kong at the start of the legislature’s new session, she said.
“What orders or edicts did Fu receive in Hong Kong this time? Or is he asking [China] to help save the KMT from recalls?” Wu asked.
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-lin
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS