The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Ho Jianghua (何建華), a legislator-at-large nominee for the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), could be charged with vote-buying after allegedly leading a five-day tour on which most expenses were paid by the Chinese government.
On Monday, Ho was to be released on NT$200,000 bail, but she told prosecutors that she could not pay. They still released her, but restricted her travel.
The investigation is “political persecution,” Ho said, adding that the tour was unrelated to the Jan. 11 elections.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
“The participants paid the NT$7,800 cost of the five-day trip,” Ho said. “It was not vote-buying.”
The 16 tour participants were questioned and released on Monday, without bail.
Investigators said they have enough evidence of Chinese funds subsidizing the tour, which started in Kinmen and traveled via the “small three links” — from Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties — to Xiamen in China’s Fujian Province.
A cost of NT$7,800 per person only covers the airfare and other transportation costs (NT$6,600), as well as travel insurance and an administration fee (NT$1,200), leaving accommodation, meals and other expenses to be covered by Chinese funds, the investigators said.
An examination of cellphone messages showed that participants urged friends to vote for the party and its candidates in the election, and included messages that read: “Thanks to Chairwoman [Ho]” and “Hope our chairwoman gets elected,” the investigators said.
This indicated that the tour was meant to garner votes for the CUPP and Ho, they added.
Ho, 56, is a high-ranking member of the pro-China CUPP, founded by Chang An-le (張安樂).
Ho is also chairwoman of the Taipei-based Chinese Women’s Federation, a pro-China organization whose members are mostly Chinese women who married and settled in Taiwan.
The organization’s Facebook and social media pages support Taiwan’s annexation by China and other pro-Beijing views, while condemning advocates of Taiwanese independence.
Born in China’s Hunan Province, Ho in 1996 married her Taiwanese husband and came to live in Taiwan. Having fulfilled residency requirements and received citizenship, she is eligible to vote and run for public office.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary