20031023

Lee fingers Soong in Chung Hsing case

SCANDAL: The former president said that the PFP chairman opened secret accounts at Chung Hsing Bills Finance when he was the KMT secretary-general

By Jimmy Chuang

STAFF REPORTER

Former president Lee Teng-hui reportedly told Taipei prosecutors yesterday that People First Party Chairman James Soong did embezzle money from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Lee testified yesterday at a close-door investigative hearing chaired by Taipei Chief Prosecutor Lin Bang-liang and Prosecutor Meng Ling-shih.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 9:30am, but Lee arrived at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office around 8:40am, wanting to begin earlier.

When approached by reporters when he walked out of the prosecutors' office's interrogation room No. 1 around noon, Lee said that he would not disclose what he told prosecutors.

"Nobody is supposed to make public any information from an investigative hearing, so I won't," Lee said.

However, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Chien Lin Hui-chun was happy to provide reporters with details of what she said was Lee's testimony.

"This testimony was endorsed by Lee," she said, showing reporters a document which she then read from.

According to Chien Lin, Lee told prosecutors that Soong opened a "secretary-general's account" at the Bank of Taiwan on Sept. 17, 1991 without any authorization from the party.

Soong was secretary-general of KMT at the time. The account was reportedly set up to accept donations to the KMT.

According to Chien Lin, Lee said Soong opened another secret account, that same day and for the same purpose, at the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp -- again without informing him beforehand.

She said Lee told prosecutors that between Sept. 17, 1991 and March 10, 1993, NT$360.88 million in donations was deposited into the two accounts, but that he had not been told of donations even though he was the president and chairman of the KMT.

"Soong left his post holding the money in 1993 since Hsu Shui-teh, who took over as KMT secretary-general, was not told of the two accounts," Chien Lin said.

Lee's testimony yesterday was the second time he has talked to prosecutors since a new investigation into Soong and the Chung Hsing account was launched in March.

The investigation was begun based on information that Chuang Po-lin, a lawyer for the KMT, provided to prosecutors when they announced, on Jan. 20, 2001, their decision not to prosecute Soong in connection with what had become known as the Chung Hsing Bills scandal.

Former president Lee Teng-hui speaks to reporters at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office after testifying on the Chung Hsing Bills Finance scandal yesterday.

At the time, Chuang described what he gave the prosecutors' office as "new evidence."

When contacted by the Taipei Times by phone yesterday, Chuang said that Soong's not being honest with him was what upset Lee the most.

Lee's attendance at yesterday's hearing was his first appearance at a prosecutors' office and the first time a former president has replied to a summons to a prosecutors' office.

He was earlier interrogated by prosecutors at his residence in Tahsi, Taoyuan County, on March 26.

"Lee is a former president. We would respect his requests when necessary but he has not asked for any special prerogatives nor is he being given any," said Chen Hung-ta, the spokesman of the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.

By law, only the summoned person and his or her lawyer are allowed to enter an interrogation room for a close-door investigative hearing.

For security reasons, however, the prosecutors' office also allowed Lee's security guards to be in the room as well.

Corrupt former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung has staged a vanishing act on the eve of his jail term, after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against conviction last month. Chu's wife and daughter called a press conference to moan and accuse the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of being "dirty" and "unjust." They accused the DPP of persecuting Chu, and said he fled to exercise his right of resistance. Chu's wife Wu Teh-mei said that she did not know Chu's whereabouts, and that he should seek political asylum via international organizations if he was abroad.

On Tuesday, local cable TV stations looped footage of the press conference every ten minutes, as if the pair were pursuing justice as a widow and an orphan. Yet the viewing audience surely knows it is absurd and lacking in balance for TV stations to deliberately exaggerate these two women's charade.

It would appear that if the shameless dare to be loud, then the news channels will give them a soapbox. As for what the audience might think, we would not be inclined to follow Ah Q's words: "Everything will be judged by society." Not every member of the television audience is smart and virtuous. Otherwise, politicians like Chu and their cronies would not have dominated Kaohsiung's political circles.

Let's not forget that Chu was once a member of the Control Yuan and a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Wu herself was once a KMT legislator. For this case, Chu was sentenced to 22 months in prison for buying votes during the Kaohsiung City Council election last year. Chu has also been charged in relation to two other cases -- an NT$22.7 billion embezzlement case at the An Feng Group, of which he was president, and a second vote-buying case during the Kaohsiung City Council election for speaker last December. Prosecutors are seeking a seven-year prison sentence for the embezzlement case, and in the latter vote-buying case, in which Chu is suspected of bribing each councilor NT$5 million, Wu is also listed as an accomplice and is now out on NT$300,000 bail. After the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, Chu called a press conference and revealed that he had tried to bribe Kaohsiung District Court judge Tsai Wen-kui.

Chu and Wu have been in politics for many years, and their political careers peaked when the KMT was in power. Given Wu's rich experience in political maneuvering, it was no surprise to see her drag her daughter into the fray and stage a meticulously scripted piece of theater.

Wu certainly knows that political parties have a habit of descending into vicious political wrangling prior to elections. That was why she and her daughter adopted a "thrash [Chen Shui-]Bian" strategy in Tuesday's press conference in sync with the blue camp's anti-Chen stance. That was why they claimed that Chu's conviction was a result of the DPP's "green terror." It was an attempt to seek support from KMT and People First Party (PFP) politicians.

In the wake of the Chu family's attack on the DPP, the KMT-PFP camp is both gratified and concerned: gratified, because they have found some comrades-in-arms; concerned, because the Chus are now public targets for their shady affairs. Whether the KMT and PFP politicians will overcome their hesitancy and join the Chu family's attack to seek votes in Kaohsiung remains to be seen.

Former US secretary of defense William Cohen will deliver a tribute to President Chen Shui-bian when he receives a prestigious award from a New York-based human rights organization on Oct. 31, a presidential adviser said yesterday.

Chen will travel to Panama at the end of this month, stopping over in New York and Anchorage, Alaska.

The International League for Human Rights will honor Chen with its annual Human Rights Award, said Chen Lung-chu, an adviser to Chen Shui-bian and a member of the league's governing council.

The league, founded in 1941, has worked to keep human rights at the forefront of international affairs. It says its mission is "defending individual human rights advocates who have risked their lives to promote the ideals of a just and civil society."

The league chose Chen Shui-bian as the recipient of this year's award mainly because of his actions following the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident and during other human-rights and democracy movements during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule, Chen Lung-chu said.

Chen Shui-bian, then a lawyer, was once imprisoned for his defense of human-rights activists.

He is slated to leave Taiwan on Oct. 31, arrive in New York that same day and stay there for two nights.

Previous recipients of the league's Human Rights Award include the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Kim Dae-jung, Elie Wiesel, Andrei Sakharov, Mario Soares, Roger Baldwin, George Mitchell, Sadako Ogata and Mary Robinson.

Cohen, also a former senator and now chief of the US-Taiwan Business Council, will act as dinner chairman during the award ceremony, Chen Lung-chu said.

Thomas Rabaut, president and CEO of United Defense, a leading US arms company, along with chairman of the Los Angeles-based Formosa Foundation Wu Li-pei will also deliver tributes to Chen Shui-bian.

Rabaut and Wu will be co-chairmen of the dinner. Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani is expected to appear at the ceremony, Chen Lung-chu said.

"If Guiliani is able to join the ceremony, he will also deliver a tribute to President Chen. But his participation in the event has yet to be confirmed," he said.

A total of 527 officers on active duty have next of kin from China living with them, a senior Ministry of National Defense official told lawmakers yesterday.

General Chen Pan-chih, head of the ministry's political warfare bureau, made the remarks during a meeting of the legislature's National Defense Committee.

At the meeting, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Ho Min-hao said he wanted to know how many Chinese relatives of officers have come to live in this country and how many of them have joined the military or been admitted to military academies.

Ho said he feared that national security may be affected by senior military officers having their Chinese relatives living with them.

Chen said none of the Chinese relatives have joined the military or been admitted to military schools.

By law, Chinese nationals cannot join volunteer military services until they have been naturalized citizens for at least 20 years.

Chen also said that all service personnel are prohibited from using military phone lines to contact any individual persons or units in China. He noted that the ministry has strict security regulations and any member of the military involved in disclosing military secrets is subject to harsh penalties.

Chen Pan-chih was one of three generals who came under fire from opposition lawmakers on the committee yesterday after being asked to report to the committee on how the military will maintain neutrality in the lead-up to the March presidential election.

The generals vowed that the military will stay out of politics and election-related activities.

Chen, General Hsueh Shih-ming, head of the armed forces reserve command, and Lieutenant General Yu Lien-fa, commander of the military police, were all promoted by President Chen Shui-bian. There have been allegations they used their relations to get their promotions.

"They might be good. But it is a pity that relations come before capabilities in the promotion of generals," Sun said.

In response, General Chen said, "President Chen must be thinking that I could contribute something to the military. Now I have chosen to stay a few more years in the military. If I do not perform well, my superior, Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming, could replace me immediately."

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lee Tung-hao and Lin Nan-sheng joined in the attack on the generals, though they were less harsh.

FOR AND AGAINST: Using banquets and newspaper ads, overseas Chinese supporting China and Taiwan did their best to promote their man at the summit

"Although most of these overseas Chinese communities pretty much have their stance set with regard to which side of the Taiwan Strait they identify with, that does not mean we stop working with them."－Paul Cheng, Taiwan's representative to Thailand

While the Taiwanese and Chinese delegations jostled for good seats for their representatives at the just-concluded APEC summit in Bangkok, overseas Chinese communities loyal to both sides were playing their own game of one-upmanship.

When Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh, who was representing President Chen Shui-bian, arrived in Bangkok on Saturday, the pro-Beijing overseas Chinese community put on a banquet to welcome Chinese President Hu Jintao, who arrived the day before.

Of the more than 200 Thai-based Taiwanese businesspeople and their spouses who showed up to welcome Lee and the Taiwanese delegation, many said that they had also been invited to attend Hu's banquet.

"I received an invitation to Hu's banquet," said Huang Sheng-yung, president of Thai-Taiwan Business Association. "But I, on my own will, chose to come here to welcome Dr. Lee Yuan-tseh."

Huang, whose organization comprises more than 1,000 Thai-Taiwanese business chapters across Thailand, said that some chapter members had chosen to attend Hu's banquet.

"Everyone is entitled to make his or her own decision. You can't do anything about it," he said.

On the day Hu arrived in Bangkok, pro-Beijing associations took out a four-page advertisement welcoming him in the World Daily, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in Bangkok. They bought another four-page ad the following day.

Not to be outdone, overseas Taiwanese groups bought four-page ads on Sunday and Monday to greet Lee and his delegation.

Taiwan's representative to Thailand, Paul Cheng, said that the overseas Taiwanese community in the country numbered around 140,000. The large number of Taiwanese living there means Taiwan is the Thailand's third largest investor, after Japan and the US, he said.

Cheng said that because many migrants from China had been in Thailand for many decades and now had Thai citizenship, it was hard to put a figure on the number of overseas Chinese there.

"I would say that the ratio between the pro-China and the pro-Taiwan overseas Chinese here is about 50-50," he said.

Cheng said that some communities refused to take sides and "would just post advertisements welcoming both Hu and Lee, and on other occasions such as Taiwan's and China's national days."

Even so, Cheng said the government takes great interest in the overseas Chinese communities.

"For example," he said, "we will visit Thai-based Taiwanese businesspeople's manufacturing facilities to show them that the Taiwan authority cares about them."

Cheng's office also awarded a certificate showing the government's appreciation to the Taiwanese community for donating 1,400 N95 masks during the SARS outbreak earlier this year.

Before China launched the Shenzhou V spacecraft, a struggle developed between former president and military commission chairman Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao regarding who should attend the launch. In the end, it was Hu who appeared at the launch site, and Premier Wen Jiabao who declared the return a success. Jiang was merely the third person to deliver his congratulatory speech.

Everything progressed according to the "rules" in order to prove that the party and the nation carry more weight than the army. Jiang is at a disadvantage in these intra-party struggles. Looking at the bigger picture, however, the party does not want to leave the outside world with the impression China is a military state.

However, regardless of whether we look at this issue from the point of view of the military's involvement in the Shenzhou project, or from the point of view of consistent Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thinking, it is a continuation of the approach formulated by former foreign minister Chen Yi, who said, "At the risk of losing our pants, we are determined to go ahead and build our own atomic bomb."

Military goals of course remain the main concern. The Washington Times has revealed that Shenzhou V placed a military spy satellite in space during its 14 revolutions around Earth.

According to Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002, a report from the US Congressional Research Service, China bought arms worth US$17.8 billion during this period, and it was the world's largest arms buyer last year. Why is China in such a rush to expand its military might? Given its huge population and current military strength, no one would dare think about invading it. The only explanation is its ambition to realize the dream of becoming a dominant power.

Following the launch of Shenzhou V, the Internet crowd could not help but shout a few slogans -- attack Japan, destroy the US, unify the world -- which are echoes of the Chinese education system. China's diplomatic strategy has traditionally been to attack neighbors and maintain friendly relations with distant nations.

In contemporary warfare, however, distance is not a big problem. What's more, the greatest restraint on Chinese expansion is the US. China has therefore changed strategies, and now looks for a friendly relationship with its neighbors so it can build a united front with which to attack the US, the leader of the democratic world.

Since Japan and Taiwan are protected by the US' nuclear umbrella, they may be the first to be attacked. To realize this goal, it would rely on trickery to placate the US in order to divide, undermine and attack its allies one by one.

Russia is the key to realizing China's dream of domination, and China has therefore been willing to give up territory in exchange for Sino-Russian military cooperation. Just after the CCP's 16th National Congress last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing, where he and Jiang issued a joint statement. According to the statement, "The two heads of state reiterate that regardless of changes in the international situation and regardless of domestic changes in Russia or China, the two sides are determined to abide by the guidelines and principles stated in the treaty."

In other words, China has no regrets whatsoever about giving up its territory in order to win the hearts of the Russian people. In this way, China does not have to fear that an attack will be launched from the rear.

But with Russian weapons accounted for, China would still not be able to take on the US, and China therefore continues to chisel away at the US and Europe. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visited the US late last month to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue and to ingratiate himself with the US. The US repeatedly showed its gratitude for China's efforts. Li met with Secretary of State Colin Powell, and leader of the US' hawks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He was even received informally by President George W. Bush.

Such high-caliber treatment made Li very excited. When he attended a US-China Business Council lunch on Sept. 23, after meeting with congressional leaders earlier that day, he called on the US to relax its regulations for high-tech exports to China. He said that this would help cut the US trade deficit.

Unintentionally, Li revealed what China wants most from the US -- advanced technology for its military. On Oct. 13, China issued its first EU policy document, in which it said it hoped the EU would become China's biggest trading and investment partner.

The document also requested that the EU as soon as possible abolish its ban on arms sales to China and eliminate obstacles to the broadening of military industry and technology cooperation between China and the EU. It is clear that China is using economic incentives to entice the US and European countries and their businesspeople to transfer high-tech military equipment to them.

China desperately wants these military technologies. In addition to realizing China's dream of domination, it will also allow China to export to evil-doing countries, make money and once again create trouble for the US.

US companies leaking space shuttle technology to China during the Clinton presidency and China's ability to steal or illegally buy high-tech products from the US provide further evidence for this view.

Democratic countries should take preventive measures before it is too late to deal with China's attempts at realizing military dominance, spreading dictatorship and diminishing human rights.