The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday filed charges against two high-ranking intelligence officials, accusing them of spying on the DPP’s presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
DPP Legislator Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如) and lawyers Hsu Kuo-yong (徐國勇), Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) and Lin Hong-wen (林鴻文) brought charges against National Security Council Secretary-General Hu Wei-jen (胡為真) and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) Director Chang Ji-ping (張濟平) at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) yesterday morning.
Hu and Chang have broken six laws, among them the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法) and the Public Servants’ Administrative Neutrality Act (公務人員行政中立法), and are also guilty of corruption, Hsu said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The two are at the center of a controversy described by the DPP as “Taiwan’s Watergate,” after the Chinese-language Next Magazine reported on Dec. 28 that Hu had asked the MJIB to deploy 28 agents nationwide to monitor Tsai.
According to the report, Hu had submitted information detailing the DPP chairperson’s schedule, meetings, contacts and the possible number of votes at stake to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
“Hu and Chang have utilized the state apparatus to persecute the opposition candidate and to benefit Ma’s re-election campaign,” Hsu said.
Hsu, who on Monday cited an anonymous source inside the MJIB as saying Chang had given orders to destroy all documents related to the monitoring project, urged the SID to immediately launch an investigation and secure any evidence.
While the SID has said it would stay out of politics, if it could launch an investigation the day after Council of Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) accused Tsai of improper involvement in the formation of a biotech company, then it should also be able to immediately open an investigation into allegations of the government spying on Tsai, Hsu said.
Elsewhere yesterday, three DPP legislative candidates accused Ma of violating the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法) and the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法) before he became president.
Pasuya Yao (姚文智), Juan Chao-hsiung (阮昭雄) and Lee Chien-chang (李建昌) said during a joint press conference that during his presidential campaign in 2008, Ma had accepted six political donations from Pan Chun-jung (潘俊榮), chairman of Kung Sing Engineering Corp (KESCO, 工信工程).
Pan’s company had won the bid to build Taipei’s Neihu MRT line in 2003 when Ma was serving as the city’s mayor, but the line was still under construction when the donations were made in 2008, which was a violation of the Political Donations Act, Yao said.
According to the Government Procurement Act, Ma’s decision to grant the project to KESCO in 2003 was also illegal because the Central Investment Holding Co (中央投資公司), owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), held 11.23 percent of KESCO’s shares, the candidates said.
The trio added that they would file charges against Ma at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today.
In response, Ma’s re-election campaign office yesterday said the president had handled political donations during the 2008 presidential campaign in accordance with regulations and urged the DPP not to avoid the discussion of Tsai’s alleged wrongdoing in the case of Yu Chang Biologics (宇昌生技股份有限公司), now known as TaiMed Biologics (中裕新藥股份有限公司), by dredging up an old case in the hope of blackening Ma’s name.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS