Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said yesterday that an incident involving a GIO official who allegedly wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese should not be blown out of proportion.
Su made the remarks after being asked by reporters whether the government should apologize for the alleged indiscretion by Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), the acting director of the information division at Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers allege that Kuo wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese in articles penned under the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽).
The GIO transferred Kuo back to Taiwan and referred him to the Judicial Yuan’s Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries for investigation.
‘APPROPRIATE’
Su yesterday said the GIO’s handling of the Kuo incident was “appropriate,” as the GIO could not determine by itself whether Fan was Kuo’s pen name given the discrepancies between the GIO’s findings and Kuo’s side of story.
The GIO has come under criticism for its handling of the case.
Back in 2002, then-Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) offered an apology over a slip of the tongue by Wu Meng-teh (吳孟德), then director of the Public Works Bureau, for saying that the flooding that had hit the city that summer was the result of “there [being] too many Mainlanders.”
Wu subsequently stepped down to take responsibility.
Citing Wu’s case, reporters yesterday asked Su whether the government would take more actions to quell the uproar caused by the Kuo incident.
Su said that Kuo’s position was protected by laws regulating civil servants.
“[The punishment given to] Kuo could have been more severe if Kuo had been a politically appointed official or my personal secretary [rather than a civil servant],” Su said, adding that “if I offered an apology [for the incident] now, it would be tantamount to a conviction for Kuo.”
DPP
Su said that most of the articles by Fan were written between 2005 and 2007, when the DPP was in power.
“I have been reluctant to mention the fact that the articles were written during the DPP government. As I am now GIO minister, I don’t want to implicate [the former DPP government] in the Kuo affair, but the case should not be blown out of proportion,” Su said.
At a separate setting yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said he had instructed all ministry personnel stationed abroad to be strictly mindful of their conduct and speech while representing the country and that he personally believed Kuo had “entirely stepped out of bounds.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RSS