The Central Election Commission (CEC) last night decided to revoke former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee’s (李慶安) elected status both as a Taipei City councilor and as a legislator, after the US Department of State on Thursday confirmed that Lee’s US citizenship was still valid.
“The CEC believes that Diane Lee was a dual citizen between 1991 and 2005, and thus decided in a meeting today [Friday] to revoke her elected status as Taipei City councilor in 1994, and as legislator in 1999, 2002 and 2005,” CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said. “We will also void her elected certificates.”
Although Lee was re-elected as a legislator last year, Teng said the CEC could do nothing about her latest term because of changes to the nationality clause. This used to be in the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選舉罷免法) — hence under the CEC’s jurisdiction — but was moved to the Nationality Act (國籍法) in November 2007, so is now the responsibility of the National Immigration Agency.
Teng said the CEC decision came as a result of a vote in which eight members voted for the action while three voted against it.
“The CEC made the decision based on a letter from the US Department of State that said it had completed a probe into Lee’s dual-citizenship case, and believes that Lee did not fulfill her duty to show her intention to give up US citizenship when she first took public office in Taiwan in 1994,” Teng said.
Lee’s laywer, Lee Yung-ran (李永然), protested the CEC’s decision.
“Diane Lee was legally elected ... The CEC, as an institution in the executive branch, has no right to revoke that election,” Lee Yung-ran said. “If the CEC thinks there’s a problem, they should take it to the courts and let the judiciary decide.”
Lee Yung-ran added that Diane Lee was considering legal action against the CEC’s “illegal decision.”
KMT-recommended commission member Liu Kuang-hua (劉光華) and People First Party-recommended commission member Chao Shu-chien (趙叔鍵) supported Lee Yung-ran’s view that it should be a court, not the commission, that makes the final decision.
The dual-citizenship allegation against Diane Lee first surfaced last March. At the time, she argued that by taking an oath as a public official when she was first elected as Taipei City councilor in 1994 she lost her US citizenship.
Diane Lee promised in December that she would provide a legal document proving that she longer had US citizenship by the end of last month. However, she resigned as a legislator on Jan. 8 and failed to show any document supporting her claim by Jan. 31.
Although her election was revoked, Teng said the CEC cannot require her to return the NT$100 million (US$3 million) she received in salary as a city councilor and lawmaker, as “it’s the city council and the Legislative Yuan that have the power to do so.”
“The revocation would not affect any legislative ... power Diane Lee has exercised during her terms in office because her election was ‘revoked’ not ‘invalidated’ — meaning that she exercised power legitimately when she was in office,” Teng said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) yesterday urged KMT legislators and KMT Taipei city councilors to recover the salary Lee earned from 1991 to 2005.
DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said the CEC’s decision showed the KMT-dominated legislature’s refusal to relieve Lee of her status as a legislator was wrong.
KMT caucus whip Chang Shuo-wen (張碩文) said the CEC was responsible for the controversy.
“The CEC is a government institution that reviews if someone is qualified to become a candidate,” Cheng said. “So this whole mess .... was because the CEC wasn’t careful in reviewing a candidate’s qualifications.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS