Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Politicians and pundits slammed former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate, for allegedly linking up with people with criminal records, politicians convicted of vote-buying, and gangsters in regional offices, following reports yesterday that two TPP executives in Taipei are members of Chinese secret society Hongmen (洪門).

Internet celebrity Liu Yu (劉宇) and others alleged that current heads of the TPP’s Taipei offices in Zhongshan (中山) and Songshan (松山) districts, Chen Ta-yeh (陳大業) and Wang Chen-hung (王振鴻) respectively, are members of the Saint Wenshan Group, Hongmen’s largest network branch in Taiwan.

The accusations came days after TPP executives in Tainan last weekend endorsed the candidacy of Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan City Council speaker, who is running as an independent for a legislator seat.

China on Monday last week published a new version of its national map that extends its territorial claims in the Asia-Pacific region. The map angered neighboring states just before Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was supposed to attend this weekend’s G20 summit in New Delhi.

Not only does the new map released by the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources include 90 percent of the South China Sea with the controversial “nine-dash line” that the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled unlawful in 2016, but it added a 10th dash to include Taiwan, an independent, sovereign nation that the People’s Republic China has never set foot on.