The alleged money-laundering case enveloping former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family has attracted a great deal of foreign media attention, which has greatly tarnished Taiwan’s international image, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
The ministry has released a statement to its embassies and representative offices, instructing them on how to respond to inquiries about the case as part of a “damage control” effort, ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.
“The government of the Republic of China strongly opposes any conduct that damages social morals and abuses the freedom of international financial transactions. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly stressed that even the head of state is not above the law,” the ministry statement said.
The ministry reiterated that it would fully cooperate with authorities investigating the allegations.
The ministry statement said that although Taiwan has made rapid progress in its democratic development, the country still lacks the legal basis needed to fully supervise the financial behaviors of public servants.
“To make Taiwan’s democratic system more complete, both the ruling and the opposition parties have agreed to list an unaccountable asset act as a priority item in the next legislative session,” the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) vowed yesterday to cultivate a clean government and bring public servants involved in irregularities to justice.
“To establish a clean government is never a slogan, but a contract we have signed with the public ... We have to make the government come out on top in terms of integrity and transparency and make people proud of the government they elected,” Liu told the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.
“Jurispudence is the last line of defense for social equality and justice. Anyone who violates the law will be subject to justice regardless of their social status or party affiliation,” Liu said.
He urged all public servants to abide by the set of ethics for all government employees that took effect on Aug. 1.
Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) denied a report in the Chinese-language China Times that she had been named by Liu to lead an ministerial task force to investigate the money-laundering allegations surrounding the former first family.
Wang made the remarks amid rumors that high-level officials have their hands in a case now under investigation by the Special Investigative Panel of the Supreme Prosecutor Office.
At a separate setting yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) shrugged off speculation that the pan-blue camp had conspired to sabotage the former president.
Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) alleged last week that Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) had leaked information to Hung to manipulate the case against Chen Shui-bian.
Hsueh dismissed Ker’s claim as groundless.
“The tension across the Taiwan Strait could be relaxed and so could the tension between political camps in Taiwan,” Hung said.
She said the public should focus on the allegations against the former president, adding that Chen Shui-bian’s case was an opportunity for the public to “tell right from wrong” and “rebuild the values of Taiwan.”
In related news, Henry Chen said Control Yuan investigators spent two hours at the ministry yesterday afternoon to collect information for a probe into why Taiwan’s Swiss Representative Office, in particular Representative George Liu (劉寬平), took more than two weeks to inform the ministry about the Swiss authority’s request for assistance on the money laundering case involving the former first family.
Even the investigators, Henry Chen said, felt there were some “serious loopholes” in the representative office’s report explaining the delay.
He said he could not divulge any details of the report.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING AND FLORA WANG
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its