Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/12/25
By: Claudia Liu, Chang Min-hsuen and Ko Lin

Taipei, Dec. 25 (CNA) Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and her party supporters took to the streets Sunday to protest against a proposed lifting by the government of a ban on imports of food products from radiation-affected areas of Japan.

Standing among several senior KMT officials on Ketagalan Boulevard, Hung accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her government for considering allowing imports of banned Japanese food products at the expense of the health of Taiwan’s people, adding that she will initiate a recall campaign against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who support lifting the ban.

“We can no longer tolerate this,” she shouted, calling for the government to have a “rational discussion” of the issue.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 22, 2016
By: Stephanie Chao and Yuan-Ming Chiao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Kuomintang (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu called on the Tsai

administration to “wake up” to the threat of continuing diplomatic isolation after Sao Tome and Principe cut diplomatic ties.

“We hope the government can be more clear headed, wake up to these events and exercise more wisdom in order to ensure the safety of its citizens and the country’s future,” Hung said during an impromptu media call before the party’s weekly central standing committee meeting.

KMT legislators expressed concern that Wednesday’s incident could trigger a domino effect of countries switching recognition to Beijing, urging the government to reevaluate its current position on cross-strait relations.    [FULL STORY]

BETTER THAN NOTHING:The NPP welcomed the bill, even though it had proposed removing all the thresholds, as it felt a simple majority would better represent public opinion

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 30, 2016
By: Hsiao Ting-fang, Chen Yu-fu and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer

The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed amendments to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職

人員選舉罷免法), which lawmakers said returned the power to recall elected officials to the public after it was previously withheld due to high thresholds.

The act prior to amendment stipulated that for officials to be recalled more than half of eligible voters must ratify the proposal and at least half must then vote for the recall.

The amendment dropped the threshold for recall petitions from 2 percent of voters within the elected official’s constituency to 1 percent, while the number of signatures supporting the proposal was cut from 13 percent to 10 percent.

The amount of votes supporting the recall must reach at least a quarter of the original voting population of the constituency, down from half, with at least half voting for the recall.    [FULL  STORY]

MEANS AND ENDSThe DPP is only interested in political hegemony and is attempting to eliminate the KMT using transitional justice as a cover, KMT Chairwoman Hung said

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 28, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday accused the Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) government of seeking to launch a politically motivated witch hunt under the banner of “transitional justice.”

Hung said only the KMT has managed to achieve actual transitional justice.

“The KMT has cultivated Taiwan for more than 60 years, making the nation one of the four Asian tiger economies and also, through former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) lifting of bans on newspapers and political parties, transformed the Republic of China [ROC] from authoritarianism to democracy,” Hung said.

“This is what we call genuine transitional justice,” Hung said, adding that the DPP administration’s oft-trumpeted efforts to push for transitional justice are nothing but a sugarcoated political witch hunt.

Hung made the remarks on the sidelines of an event held by the party’s Chiayi County chapter yesterday morning to celebrate the 122th anniversary of the founding of the KMT’s predecessor the Revive China Society.    [FULL  STORY]

Party officials receive fundraising targets

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/11/09
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The main opposition Kuomintang announced Wednesday it was planning to

lay off more than half of its staff at a cost of more than NT$1.5 billion (US$47.5 million).

The party has been encountering financial difficulties amid a dispute with the government’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, which has tried to shut off some of its accounts amid investigations into the origin of its assets.

The number of party employees would be cut by 58.3 percent, which might lead to severance and retirement payments totaling between NT$1.5 billion and NT$1.8 billion (US$57.1 million), according to a decision approved by its weekly Central Standing Committee meeting Wednesday.

The party headquarters would cut its staff from 134 people to 80, while local party departments would see their total number of employees fall from 609 to 230. The local offices would still be allowed to employ extra personnel if they could afford it through local fundraising, reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

LAWS COMPANY?NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang asked if the Democratic Progressive Party thought the Legislative Yuan was a company it had to manage

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 28, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Procedural moves by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to push through controversial

amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) have betrayed promises for congressional reform, New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday.

At a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, the committee’s DPP majority confirmed the minutes of an Oct. 5 meeting, in which amendments to the act were reviewed.

Committee co-convener Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) of the DPP refused to consider a NPP motion demanding discussion of purported procedural flaws at the earlier meeting.
NPP legislators sat quietly on the sidelines during an initial fracas between DPP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers at the opening of the meeting, but Huang made a start for the front of the room after Wu announced that his party’s resolution would not be considered and was visibly agitated afterward, shedding tears.

“I was absolutely shocked when [Wu] announced that she would not consider the motion,” Huang said. “It is unacceptable that she was not even willing to address such an important procedural question.”

“What right does [the DPP] have to refuse to deal with this?” he ask    [FULL  STORY]

‘WORST LIST EVER’:The KMT said that grand justice nominees Hsu Chih-hsiung, Hsu Tzong-li and Hwang Jau-yuan were unsuitable and they should go ‘take a hike’

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 22, 2016
By: Chen Yu-fu and Shih Hsiao-kuang / Staff reporters

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials yesterday said three of the seven grand justice nominees should

be disqualified since they do not identify with the Republic of China (ROC) and the Constitution, and urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to withdraw their nominations or demand that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus block them because the KMT would oppose their nominations all the way.

At a news conference, the KMT specifically named National Chiayi University professor Hsu Chih-hsiung (許志雄), and National Taiwan University professors Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) and Hwang Jau-yuan (黃昭元) as unsuitable and said that they should “take a hike.”

KMT Culture and Communications Commission deputy director Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) said Hsu Chih-hsiung is “the worst of the lot,” because he had said Taiwan is not a normal country and that the ROC is an abandoned name which should be retired, as it was left over from the Chinese Civil War.

“How can such a person, who does not identify with the ROC, be tasked with interpreting the ROC Constitution? You cannot have it both ways. If he thinks he can get away with it, then it is hypocritical and very shameful. If he is a real man, then he should know better and go take a hike, as the Pacific Ocean is wide open, if he would like to do so.”    [FULL  STORY]

WALKOUT:One of the KMT’s witnesses said that the party assets committee had turned the hearing into an inquisitorial session and he could not put up with it

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 08, 2016
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Representatives of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the KMT-owned Central Investment Co (中

央投資公司) yesterday criticized the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) as unconstitutional and protested what they said were flaws in a hearing arranged by the Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement.

The committee yesterday held a hearing in Taipei to determine whether Central Investment Co and its subsidiary Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台) should be considered KMT affiliate organizations; whether Central Investment Co president Gordon Chen (陳樹) and four other listed shareholders acquired their shares via a KMT-established trust; whether the KMT’s shares in the two firms were ill-gotten assets; and whether those shares should be transferred to the nation, local governments and the shareholders from whom the KMT allegedly acquired them.

During a committee question-and-answer session, Chen and a Central Investment accountant confirmed that the KMT is the sole shareholder in the two firms.    [FULL  STORY]

SAFEGUARDING VALUES:The president made public a letter vowing to fight Chinese oppression, while striving to establish healthy and normal economic ties with Beijing

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 01, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Beijing’s continued suppression of Taiwan’s international space is a “lose-lose” — and not a “win-win” —

strategy, Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said yesterday, in response to a report that the Irish government has advised its ministers not to attend celebrations marking Taiwan’s National Day to avoid provoking China.

The Irish Times reported on Thursday said that the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade “has issued strong advice to ministers to resist all invitations to mark the occasion.”

According to the newspaper, the department said in an e-mail that the attendance of Irish ministers would be contrary to the government’s policy, and that “meetings between Irish and Taiwan public representatives are perceived in China as implicit recognition of the government of Taiwan and thus breach the ‘one China’ policy, which has been adhered to by successive Irish governments.”

When asked about the report, Lin said such obstruction is “not a good move,” adding, without referring to whom, “boycotting Taiwan would result in a lose-lose, rather than a win-win, situation.”     [FULL  STORY]