Taipei:The Supreme Administrative Court has upheld a 2018 ruling by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee (CIPAS) that designates the China Youth Corps (CYC) as an "affiliated organization" of the Kuomintang (KMT). This decision, announced on Thursday, is final and means that NT$5.61 billion (US$157.73 million) in assets, which were frozen by CIPAS, will remain unreleased to the CYC.

According to Focus Taiwan, the court's ruling has sparked a strong reaction from the CYC, which issued a statement expressing its inability to accept the decision and "strongly objected to the court stigmatizing more than 70 years of its public service work as ill-gotten KMT assets." The KMT also condemned the ruling, accusing the judiciary of being a tool for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to target political opponents.

CIPAS, supervised by the Executive Yuan, was established following the 2016 enactment of the Act Governing the Settlement of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations by the then-DPP government. The legislation was aimed at addressing assets acquired by political parties and their affiliated organizations during the KMT's authoritarian rule over Taiwan.

In its 2018 ruling, CIPAS determined that the CYC benefited from the KMT party-state system's resources and privileges under martial law and that the KMT controlled the CYC's personnel, finances, and operations until 1999. Although a change in leadership purportedly severed ties with the KMT, CIPAS maintained that ambiguity over asset ownership persisted, preventing a full separation between the CYC and the KMT.

Following the initial ruling, the CYC's assets were frozen, and ownership of 61 plots of land and buildings were ordered transferred to the state. The CYC appealed, asserting its independence, pointing to its establishment in 1952 under government supervision, and its transformation into an independent civilian organization after ending its affiliation with the Ministry of National Defense in 1969. The CYC also cited the 1999 leadership election, in which a KMT-backed candidate was defeated, as evidence of its independence.

However, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled in 2024 that the CYC was under effective KMT control despite its formal ties to the Ministry of National Defense, and that the KMT's influence persisted even after the CYC became a civilian organization. The court agreed with CIPAS that the 1999 separation did not fully sever ties with the KMT due to unresolved asset ownership issues.

The Supreme Administrative Court concluded there was no basis to overturn the lower court's decision, citing adequate evidence and proper legal application.