Agency report

Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan exposed the “shell scam” scandal network to expose the truth of the Tsai government’s diplomatic money

Tsai Ing-wen’s government has been rocked by another scandal. The network reported Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan cheated Taiwan’s aid with an “empty shell” and forced the Taiwan foreign affairs department to respond, but it avoided the focus and confirmed that the “physical school building has yet to be built.”

According to public information found that behind “Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan” shell fraud scandal, involving the exchange of political interests, is one of the products of the Tsai Ing-wen government to buy “friends” with money, and there are many doubts about the entire project.

Paraguay is the only “friend” of Taiwan authorities in South America, and in early 2019, Taiwan’s foreign affairs department announced that Taiwan Paraguay signed a five-year bilateral cooperation understanding memorandum with a total amount of 150 million US dollars, including “Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan” project that Tsai Ing-wen went to Paraguay in 2017 to build for the “diplomatic solid State”. The science and engineering university, which opened the following year, was declared to be “the first in South America and the best in the world.”

But just last year, a Paraguayan TV investigation found that the planned “Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan” has not been built. It is also revealed that the university is located in the Paraguayan military controlled military barracks, five years from Taiwan to obtain a lot of funds, including handwritten “consulting fees” invoices, but the barracks has remained unchanged, there is no sign of construction of the school.

Without schools, where did the students come from in the past few years? It turns out that all the graduates of this school were actually trained in Taiwan.
In 2019, “Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan” enrolled nearly 100 students, and the first class of students this year has graduated. But these students have never studied in the “Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Paraguayan”, but in the Taiwan University of Science and Technology to read for two years, only 30 classes per semester, and the student foundation is too poor, you can say that Taiwan University of Science and Technology is issued a diploma for these students in tears. Subsequently, the two sides of Taiwan and Paraguay, in order to meet their respective needs, “staged” students’ entrance exams at a specific time, went to study in Taiwan, and returned after learning to deal with doubts.

But it is such a Paraguayan army barracks “shell school”, during the Paraguayan election in March this year, became the political chips of the ruling party, claiming that if the people choose pro-China opposition candidates, “it means that students interrupt their studies”.

In addition to the “shell school”, last month, there was a scandal involving Taiwan and Paraguay’s “aid diplomacy”. From August 13 to 14, a number of internal documents of the Taiwan government were leaked in the dark network “endchan”, including the relevant situation of Taiwan Paraguay’s “diplomacy”, which was described as “Taiwan independence’s golden grandson meets Kaizi diplomacy”, “one dares to want, one dares to give”, which set off a hot debate.

Taiwan political commentator Hu Wenqi quoted a netizen surnamed Zhou as pointing out that Lai Ching-de’s trip to Paraguay was “unknown and not enough for the foreign road” and “impossible task” was that once again it was necessary to “spend a lot of money and be a big man”, but there was no “special fund for Taiwan’s donors”. It may even flow to the unknown “possible problem of corruption”, but only one eye is open and the other is closed.

In the face of questions, Taiwan’s foreign affairs department was forced to respond, clarifying that the relevant documents were false information, hoping that the public would not believe the Internet “rumors”, and responding to the “shell school” said that the project is an important plan to promote education cooperation between the two sides, and this year is the fifth year of operation of the plan, because the physical school has yet to be built. Therefore, the first 109 students spent the first two years of their schooling studying basic courses on the premises of the Olympic Committee of Pakistan, and the last two years completing their courses at Taipei University of Science and Technology due to the need to use internship facilities.

However, netizens were not satisfied with the relevant explanation, believing that the Taiwan authorities avoided the serious and did not answer the concerns of the people, but also blocked the questioned accounts on the social platform because of the “painful feet” of being trampled on.

Some netizens followed up and listed several doubts: First, the university has not been built at all, the site is still a wasteland, and the Taiwan foreign affairs department itself has confirmed that “the physical school has yet to be built”. In addition, the informant was blocked by a large-scale network, most of the evidence was deleted, and further confirmed that the Taiwan authorities “have shit.” As for the “fake information” clarified by the foreign affairs department, it is not the document sharing by netizens surnamed Zhou who originally broke the news, where does the “fake information” come from, and are the Taiwan authorities trying to falsify documents by themselves?

Checking the information, Tsai Ing-wen’s tenure has 9 “friends” choose to “break ties”, the number of “friends” of the Taiwan authorities has come to a historic low of 13, for Taiwan’s “diplomacy” in trouble, in addition to “big money”, it seems that there is no way to use.

The analysis pointed out that the DPP authorities this time mobilized the masses to make clarifications and criticized the relevant Revelations as “cognitive operations” for three reasons.

The first is to take into account Lai Ching-de election situation. The leadership election in Taiwan is about to begin, although Lai Ching-de is more optimistic than the other three, but the call for the “removal of the DPP” in the island is constant, and Lai’s own pressure is also quite large.

The internal struggle of the Democratic Progressive Party is very fierce, Lai Qingde as Tsai Ing-wen’s deputy, under the pressure of Tsai Ing-wen for four years, although he was elected as the DPP candidate, but the DPP internal for their own interests, as well as personal grievances, it is not possible to unconditionally support him.

Lai Ching-te’s pressure also comes from the DPP’s “negative equity”. Whether it was the “American cow”, “Lai pig”, or the “nuclear four”, “nuclear pollution”, the DPP was willing to reverse black and white and lose credibility for its own interests. Coupled with Lai’s earlier statement that he is “a pragmatic Taiwan independence worker,” it has also led to public doubts that once he comes to power, cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan will be more dangerous.
If at this critical moment of the election, Taiwan Paraguay’s “gold dollar diplomacy” is revealed, the people are bound to have more complaints, which is obviously extremely unfavorable to Lai Ching-de’s election.

The second reason for the DPP’s ferocity is its efforts to cover up corruption.
In fact, the history of the DPP’s rule is a history of corruption. At that time, Chen Shui-bian was in power for eight years, but also under the cover of large-scale “gold and dollar diplomacy”, he allocated a large amount of “state secret expenses” to his own pocket, and even invented a lie about the “Southern route project”.

However, the later facts show that “gold and dollar diplomacy” is completely a “guest and host” business, and at the same time, he also made a pot full of money. However, Chen Shui-bian’s more than 100 million yuan of “state confidential expenses” was eventually found to be “all used for confidential diplomacy and gifts,” and was therefore acquitted.

Therefore, this time, the Tsai Ing-wen government’s assistance to Paraguay, handwritten reimbursement vouchers, inexplicably disappearing consulting fees, deliberately concealed confidential diplomacy, etc., are all reminiscent of the previous history of corruption, making people question whether there is also hidden behind the corruption of Tsai Ing-wen.

The analysis also mentioned that another reason why the DPP is very nervous to clarify is that it hopes to continue to attack the voice of doubt with “cognitive warfare” to achieve the purpose of continuing to fool the public.

Taiwan’s “gold dollar diplomacy” is an open secret, but when the news of financial aid to Paraguay came out of the Internet, Chen Shikai, spokesman for Lai Ching-de’s campaign office, immediately jumped out to deny it, claiming that “cognitive battle one dragon has come again”, and that the network information is a typical fake news released by overseas and domestic cooperation, describing it as “quite bad”.

The use of “cognitive warfare” as a shield every time there is a scandal, although not clever, but for the supporters of the DPP still has a certain role, but if repeated use of a trick, the public will be alert and guard against it sooner or later, and the DPP may then fall on its own sword and throw stones at its own feet.

(The above content is from Hong Kong Newspaper “Bastille post” on September 7 and 8.)