President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday approved the resignation of Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), amid an ongoing investigation into Wong’s role in an insider trading scandal involving biotech company OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎).
Wong offered his resignation on March 29 when traveling in the US, but Ma did not accept it at the time and demanded instead that Wong return to Taiwan to respond to the allegations.
Allegations of improper conduct began after Wong endorsed a new OBI Pharma cancer drug, despite discouraging clinical trial results in February, and it emerged shortly afterward that his daughter is a major shareholder in the company.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
It also emerged that Wong, on behalf of his daughter, sold 10,000 of the firm’s shares before the trial results were publicly released.
Explaining his behavior to the Legislative Yuan last month, Wong said he decided not to resign in order to uphold Academia Sinica’s reputation.
However, Ma decided to approve Wong’s resignation — also to uphold the institute’s reputation — after considering public opinion, according to a statement issued by the Presidential Office yesterday.
“Wong’s decision to stay on in the post to uphold Taiwan’s reputation and prevent turmoil in [Academia Sinica’s] administration was a superfluous consideration,” the statement said.
With prosecutors probing the case, the public thinks Wong should resign over his involvement in the scandal, and an informal agreement has been reached between president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), former Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) and legislators across party lines that Wong should resign and cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation, the statement said.
Although Ma did not accept Wong’s resignation at first, Wong has been in “standby status awaiting resignation approval” since he submitted his resignation, the statement added.
Ma has decided to accept a controversial three-person list of candidates to replace Wang submitted by the institute’s selection committee last month, and has asked Academia Sinica to arrange interviews with the candidates before he steps down on Friday next week, according to a Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) report yesterday.
After the interviews, Ma would discuss his pick with Tsai, and the appointment of Academia Sinica’s next president would be made if they agree on the candidate, the report said.
However, if Tsai disagrees with Ma, the appointment would be left to her after she assumes office, the report said.
Typically, the candidate winning the most votes from members of the selection committee is appointed the institution’s president. According to details on the candidates leaked to the media last month, University of California Los Angeles department of chemistry and biochemistry director James Liao (廖俊智) is leading the race.
According to the list, Liao is followed by Academia Sinica institute of atomic and molecular sciences director Chou Mei-yin (周美吟) and then by City University of Hong Kong president Kuo Way (郭位). However, Kuo has withdrawn from the selection process.
Regarding Ma’s last-minute approval of Wong’s resignation, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Yang Chia-liang (楊家俍) said the party respects Ma’s authority over the appointment of Academia Sinica’s president, but Ma has delayed the issue until nine days before his term expires.
“The DPP last month already asked Ma to deal with the issue as early as possible, and he owes the public an explanation for the delay. Ma is also urged to reconsider making a hasty decision of appointing the next Academia Sinica president in such a short time,” Yang said.
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: MOFA demanded Beijing stop its military intimidation and ‘irrational behavior’ that endanger peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region The Presidential Office yesterday called on China to stop all “provocative acts,” saying ongoing Chinese military activity in the nearby waters of Taiwan was a “blatant disruption” of the “status quo” of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. Defense officials said they have detected Chinese ships since Monday, both off Taiwan and farther out along the first island chain. They described the formations as two walls designed to demonstrate that the waters belong to China. The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it had detected 53 military aircraft operating around the nation over the past 24 hours, as well
‘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
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
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