GIO head fires Kuo Kuan-ying, offers apology for comments

But Su defended his later-than-never decision by claiming his GIO did everything in accordance with the law to deal with Kuo, who at first denied he was Fan Lanqin, an author of articles derogatory to Taiwan posted on his blog.

“We found Kuo is Fan Lanqin and he did things unbecoming of a public functionary,” Su said, adding: “We decided to dismiss him and I offer my apology to the public for what he did.”

Fan Lanqin, homophones for “Pan-Blue Respectable,” described Taiwan as a “Ghost Island,” which is a renegade province of the People's Republic that should be conquered and placed under rule by a military government.

The GIO did not find out the truth about Fan Lanqin. Kuo was given notice that he was suspended as first secretary in charge of public information at Toronto, when he was in Washington, D.C. where he told reporters from Taiwan he indeed was Fan Lanqin.

On learning of the news from Washington, the GIO called a hasty meeting of its discipline committee at 2:00 p.m.to take the decision to fire Kuo, whom Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers have long identified as Fan Lanqin and demanded his outright dismissal for “disloyalty” to the country.

While offering a apology, the GIO chief called on the opposition party leaders not to go on stoking the feud between the native-born islanders and their Chinese-born “out-of-province” brethren.

Chinese mainlanders are called “out-of-province” people by the islanders of the now nominally existing province of Taiwan.

Tsai Ing-wen, DPP chairwoman, blasted Su for “acting too late” in dealing with the Kuo case.

DPP legislative caucus leaders held a victory party at the Legislative Yuan, where they said Kuo's ouster is “justice come late.”

They also demanded that President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan apologize for the Kuo incident.

Ker Chien-ming, the DPP whip, said Kuo was fired simply because President Ma and his Kuomintang are worried that if the incident is not ended, their candidate for a Taipei legislative by-election would lose.

“That's why Kuo was axed and his supervisors are guilty of dereliction of duty and they have to take responsibility,” said Ker.

“Shouldn't Liu Chao-shiuan and President Ma apologize? The Kuomintang can't shirk responsibility.”

His caucus colleagues repeated what their standard bearer in the 2008 presidential election Frank Hsieh charged the “higher-ups” in the Kuomintang on Sunday with supporting Kuo in order to improve the chances of its nominee Chiang Nai-hsin winning the seat vacated by Diane Lee.

Voters in the Daan District of Taipei will go to the polls on Saturday to elect a replacement for Lee who resigned as lawmaker at the end of last year after she was found to have kept her U.S. citizenship.

The demand was unreasonable, for none of the Kuomintang leaders from President Ma on down encouraged Kuo to write those articles which appeared in 2006.

That may be the reason why Kuo said he would be coming back to Taipei at the end of this month to meet the press to explain his stance.

Whether he would really return to Taipei remains to be seen. He has promised and gone back on his word a couple of times before.

He was called back to Taipei from Toronto on March 16. The GIO decided to recall him and reassign him to a non-supervisory job in Taipei on last Tuesday. Thereupon he flew back to Toronto and has since refused to go to the office, while promising to obey the GIO order to return to Taipei by March 31 and expressing fear for his personal safety if he is back in Taipei.

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