The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) squatted on a piece of public property in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山), before acquiring and later selling it for profit, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said yesterday.
Citing its investigation, the committee said the property at 6 Quanzhou St, which now houses a 12-story condominium, was seized in 1945 by the Republic of China government from Heihachiro Ishikuro, a Japanese citizen.
The KMT Department of Nautical Enterprises and Sailors began occupying the property illegally in 1950, and in 1957, the party reached an agreement to start paying rent to state-owned Land Bank of Taiwan, which managed properties and enterprises seized from Japan, although it only paid the rent for the first three months of 1957, the committee said.
Photo courtesy of the Ill-Gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee
The bank told the KMT that it would “reluctantly allow” the KMT to pay the debt of NT$49,390 (US$1,572 at the current exchange rate) in installments as condition for continuing the lease, the committee said.
The KMT refused to pay the installments, saying that there were cash flow problems with department and it could not guarantee that the department would meet its obligations, the committee said.
After the bank threatened to sue to evict the KMT and foreclose on the property, the KMT finally agreed to make provide a guarantee via its then-Finance Committee chairman Hsu Po-yuan (徐伯園), paying the rent arrears in installments of NT$3,000 over 17 months in 1961 and 1962, the committee said.
The KMT in 1971 bought the land and the structure for NT$2.58 million, and in a series of transactions between 1999 and 2002, sold them to a third party for an undisclosed sum, it said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the