Lin Wen-cheng (林文程) said he resigned as executive director of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) under pressure from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The foundation, founded in 2003 under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, was established with government funds with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy worldwide.
Lin resigned on Thursday night during the foundation’s board meeting. The board then appointed former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) to succeed him.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), a board member, left the meeting to protest the change.
In Lin’s resignation letter, which Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) — the foundation’s chairman — read out loud to the board, Lin said he resigned because Ma had wanted to remove him since June 2008.
In an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Thursday, Lin said the board spent a considerable amount of time discussing his case and that board members across party lines said he had done a good job.
While some board members had asked Wang what was behind Lin’s departure, Lin said Wang later acknowledged the pressure came from the president, though he stopped short of mentioning Ma’s name.
Saying the foundation should be an organization devoted to democracy and without partisan bias, board supervisor Tsai Ming-hwa (蔡明華) questioned how the foundation could remove ranking officials simply because of differences in political ideology.
Tsai Huang-liang said he felt Wang was helpless in the matter, adding that Wang, in an attempt to maintain harmony, told the board that Lin had not been removed, but had resigned.
“Everyone knows the real reason. Politics, after all, involves a lot of acting,” Tsai Huang-liang said.
Tsai Huang-liang accused Ma of investigating Lin’s political beliefs and shaming Taiwan’s democracy.
Lin told the Liberty Times that he admired the head of the US’ National Endowment for Democracy (NED), who thanked everyone in the US for their support when the NED presented Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama with an award for democracy on Feb. 29.
The NED is sponsored by the US government, but Americans believe it belongs to all the people of the US and not to any party or any government, Lin said.
By contrast, Lin said, Ma pressuring him to resign shows freedom and democracy have still not matured in Taiwan, and this upsets him greatly.
According to Lin, last June, then-National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) met Wang and told him that Lin should step down because he once served as a NSC adviser under the DPP administration, and that Lin had expressed support for Taiwan’s independence during a closed-door meeting at the Brookings Institution in the US in 2004.
Lin said he couldn’t remember whether he had made such comments.
However, even if he had, he was at that time an NSC adviser and the setting was a closed-door meeting, he said.
Lin said he was scared by Su’s claim that he had a recording of his comments because it reminded him of the White Terror era, and he had no idea how Su could have gotten such a recording.
Lin also quoted Su as telling him last October that although he was doing a good job, his position was a symbolic one and that he had to leave because the ruling party had changed.
Noting that a consensus on supporting democracy and human rights in China was reached among the ruling and opposing parties when the foundation was founded, Lin said he hoped those ideals would still be upheld despite the transfer of power in Taiwan.
The Presidential Office was unavailable for comment at press time.
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
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS