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🇹🇼 Taiwan /Elections & Politics

Questions deepen over Chiang Wan-an’s son’s Scout mayoral award

From Liberty Times · () Chinese

Translated from Chinese and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s son, Chiang Te-li, was selected for an education department international exchange program, prompting allegations of privilege and concerns over conflicts of interest.
  • Commentator Wen Lang-dong questioned school and Scout association statements about the rules and arrangements surrounding a 2022 Scout-related mayoral award.
  • He called for records from the time of the events, saying official webpages and archived versions did not clearly support the later explanations.

A controversy over Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s son has widened from an exchange-student selection to questions about a Scout-related mayoral award and the records supporting it.

Chiang’s son, Chiang Te-li, was selected for a Taipei Education Department international exchange student qualification. The decision triggered allegations of privilege and debate over whether officials properly avoided conflicts of interest.

Commentator Wen Lang-dong called on the junior high division of the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University and the Taipei City Scout Association to produce records made at the time of the events. He said the school stated on Sept. 2 that Scouting had been added to the criteria for a special mayoral award on Feb. 16, 2022, before Chiang became mayor. The Scout association later issued a statement backing that account.

Please ask the school and the Scout association to produce the records from the time of the events.

· Wen Lang-dongHe called for contemporaneous documentation to clarify when the award criteria and camp arrangements were established.

Wen said he could not find announcements on either organization’s official website confirming those claims. He pointed to an official webpage showing Scouting listed under the 2022 Outstanding Performance Mayor’s Award in an announcement dated Feb. 17, 2023, after Chiang had taken office. An archived webpage also indicated that Scouting had not been included as of Feb. 7, 2022.

He also questioned the explanation that participants in a winter Scout camp on Yangmingshan in February 2025 had been uniformly told that parents could deliver warm clothing. Wen said there was no evidence of such a notice and argued that allowing families to deliver supplies could turn the test into a competition over which parents had time to help. He said a minor could not create a privilege, but a mayor could, adding that privilege can take the form of rules appearing after a particular person benefits.

Privilege does not necessarily mean breaking the rules. It can mean that you are the rules, and the rules are created because of you.

· Wen Lang-dongHe used the statement to criticize what he described as preferential treatment surrounding the mayor’s son.
About this summary

Originally published by Liberty Times in Chinese. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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