Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liao Wan-ju (廖婉汝) has frozen NT$1 million (US$31,873.52) budgeted for the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) after the agency issued a reported outlining Chinese election interference in Taiwan, demanding that it specify the case or else the council is just “chasing wind and clutching at shadows.”
In its third-quarter report on China, the council wrote that Beijing is increasingly attempting to influence Taiwanese voters through trade obstructions, tax investigations into Taiwanese companies operating in China and obstruction of Chinese tourism in Taiwan.
In response to the report, Liao said that the council was making “groundless accusations” against China, and froze a portion of its annual budget for fiscal year 2024. Liao also proposed that the council be required to submit a follow-up report to provide more details of the accusations.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
Liao said the council often reports on banquets or other events held by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and attended by Taiwanese, but that it does not give specific examples of these events.
“The MAC should indicate specifically what actions China is taking, and provide documents to support those claims. If it does so, the budget will be unfrozen,” she said.
“Don’t talk about Chinese interference during every election. It is not clear to anyone what kind of influence China has, and we cannot see any evidence of it at the grassroots level,” Liao said.
Commenting on the frozen budget, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) on Saturday said that the KMT has a “guilty conscience,” and that events held for local Taiwanese representatives by Beijing were common knowledge.
“At least half of the more than 300 borough wardens and village heads in Changhua County [were invited] by the CCP,” she said.
“The same is true of temple officials and youth association directors. The CCP adopts a bottom-up approach,” she added.
Liu said that the CCP has assisted the KMT during elections and that the KMT has attempted to hide that assistance.
“KMT legislators now hope to intimidate the MAC so that other government agencies are deterred from focusing on these actions by the CCP,” she said.
Separately, DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that Chinese attempts to interfere with Taiwan’s elections, economy and society should be a concern for all political parties.
“The CCP uses all possible means to interfere in Taiwan, and that deserves greater attention,” he said.
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