The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday consulted historians and former officials at the China Youth Corps at a hearing in Taipei to determine whether the corps is a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) affiliate, but questions surrounding the foundation’s operations remained.
The committee’s investigation report found that the corps — known as the China Youth Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps until 2000 — was founded in 1952 after a resolution by the then-KMT Central Reform Committee in an effort to “depose Chinese communists and resist Soviet Union forces” following the KMT’s defeat in the Chinese Civil War and its retreat to Taiwan.
It organized camps to teach combat skills to young people at high-school level and above under the control of the Ministry of National Defense until 1969, when then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) son, then-minister of national defense Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), took over as premier, the committee said.
Photo: CNA
The budgets granted to the corps by central government agencies were received by the then-KMT Central Committee (now the KMT Central Standing Committee), which distributed the money to the corps, it said.
The corps later underwent a transformation and started organizing a variety of activities — including art classes, hiking and camping groups, and school graduation trips — and was designated a social organization overseen by the Executive Yuan, the committee said.
In 1989, it was registered as a private foundation, it said.
Asked by committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) why the then-KMT Central Committee had received the money on behalf of the corps, corps deputy chief executive Cheng Fei-wen (鄭斐文) said he did not know.
Koo asked Chinese Cultural University history professor Tung Pao-cheng (董保城) whether the corps’ “instantaneous” transition from a government agency to a social organization, and later to a foundation, ran counter to social justice, since all its resources came from the central government.
Tung replied that during the Martial Law era, people were banned from forming groups and so the corps was monitored by the Executive Yuan.
After the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法) was passed in 1989, the corps was promptly registered as a foundation because it met all the qualifications, Tung said.
Koo asked former corps secretariat director Chao Ling-cheng (趙令正) why a number of members have doubled as presidents of education and cultural firms and foundations established by the corps.
Saying that the then-KMT government required all people aged between 16 and 25 to join the corps, he asked Chao why the corps’ size has shrunk to just 100 members.
Chao could not answer either question, saying the issues were not within his purview.
Former Academia Historica secretary-general Chen Li-wen (陳立文) said that she did not know whether the corps had returned the capital granted to it by the central government, but, as far as she knew, the corps used the majority of its funds on its work and organizing youth activities.
Koo said in an interview during an afternoon break that although information on how the corps acquired its funds was insufficient, the issue should not be dropped just because the corps was formed during the party-state era.
The committee is to focus its efforts to trace the cash flow to the corps between 1952 and 1969 by requesting more data from the Ministry of National Defense, he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS