As KMT maverick James Soong (
Reports of quick disciplinary action came a day after President Lee Teng-hui (
Chien Wei-chang (
Chien said he hopes to get the package ready for discussion at the next meeting of the party's central standing committee on Wednesday.
Soong is about to face the music for declaring his candidacy for president without permission from the party and for launching verbal attacks against the KMT's leadership.
Soong's party membership could either be suspended or revoked, Chien said.
The first wave of action will be targeted at Soong alone, while elected officials supporting Soong will be disciplined in subsequent waves, he said.
The evaluation and discipline committee has been collecting data and preparing for the action since Soong declared his intent to run, Chien said. "Now everything is ready and we are waiting for an order from Chang to hold a meeting of the committee," he said.
A lively debate is expected at the disciplinary committee's meeting, as Chien said "the matter may be put to a vote if necessary."
Soong was not rolling over yesterday, however, as he held a press conference to counter allegations that he had misspent the budget during his term as provincial governor.
The allegations surfaced earlier in the day, when Su Chih-chang (
"Nobody knows where this money went, or which project it was applied to, or through which channels it was distributed," Su said. "I think Soong should disclose the facts.''
Soong hit back later in the afternoon, with the aid of diagrams and charts showing exactly what had been done with the budget at his disposal.
"All tax revenues have to be allotted in accordance with each county's budgetary accounting items and they are supervised by the county councils, thus I was not even able to portion out the money to my campaign boosters,'' Soong said.
No sooner had Soong finished, though, than the KMT mainstream opened fire on him again.
"If Soong really didn't give out money to campaign boosters, how come Taichung County council speaker Yen Ching-piao (
"I am not questioning whether Soong had spent the money on public affairs, but rather how he spent it,'' Ting added.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS