Taipei prosecutors yesterday indicted seven suspects on suspicion of using money from Chinese agencies to buy votes for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) in the run-up to his presidential bid in January.
They allegedly acted on instructions from Huang Daonian (黃道年), director of the Economic Bureau at Changsha City’s Taiwan Affairs Office in China’s Hunan Province intended to mobilize China-based Taiwanese in support of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential and legislative candidates, prosecutors said.
The suspects — Taipei-based Chinese Women’s Federation chairwoman Ho Jianghua (何建華), Chinese Women’s Federation deputy secretary Shen Bin (沈斌), Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises in Changsha chairman Lin Huai (林懷), Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises in Changsha deputy chairman Tung Chien-hua (佟建華), China New Family Association chairwoman Chiang Ming-sia (蔣明霞), Hunan Shaoyang City Association in Taiwan director Chang Guo-jun (張國君) and Changsha City-based Taiwanese businessman Chuang Huan-chang (莊桓漳) — were charged with breaching the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法).
Photo: Reuters
A wanted bulletin was issued for Lian Sang-ming (連上銘), another member of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises in Changsha, who allegedly assisted Huang and Lin in channeling funds into the scheme.
On Huang’s written orders, Chinese officials from Hunan Province and its Changsha City Government organized banquets to fund airfare and accommodation for China-based Taiwanese — businesspeople and students — so that they could return to their home districts to vote in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
Huang formulated the scheme, along with other government officials who dealt with Taiwanese investors and businesspeople, prosecutors said.
Funds were also channeled to Ho — a nominee on the China Unification Promotion Party’s (CUPP) legislator-at-large list for the January election — for her campaign, they added.
On Dec. 3 last year, Huang held a meeting with Lin and others to organize a Dec. 6 banquet for Taiwanese businesspeople and students, they said, adding that the banquets promoted Han and other KMT candidates and gave 1,500 yuan (US$212 at the current exchange rate) to Taiwanese who booked their flight before election day, prosecutors added.
A luxury hotel in Changsha, which hosted the events, gave Huang a reduced room rate for Taiwanese, which prosecutors said they considered to be vote-buying, as the accommodation, airfare and other funds were given with the understanding that recipients would vote for KMT candidates.
The KMT yesterday in a statement said that attendance at the banquets and other events was the participants’ private affair, but that the party opposes any interference in Taiwanese elections on the part of the other side of the Taiwan Strait or other foreign entities.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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