The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday provided what it said was evidence to back its claim that Beijing was interfering in Taiwan’s elections by helping President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign.
In a press release sent out on Sunday, DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) listed five ways in which China had interfered with the election, including sending provincial-level purchasing delegations and providing incentives to mobilize Taiwanese businesspeople in China to return to Taiwan for the Jan. 14 elections.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) urged the DPP to provide evidence to back up its accusations.
Citing media reports, DPP spokesperson Liang Wen-jie (梁文傑) said that Lai Xiaohua (賴曉華), wife of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), was investigated by the Chinese government for allegedly embezzling US$300 million, which was listed as “media purchasing in Taiwan.”
Aides of People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), who is expected to run in January’s presidential election, were also quoted by the media as saying that Chinese officials had “directly or indirectly expressed their concern about possible political donations to Soong” to Taiwanese business leaders, including Chang Yung-fa (張榮發), Winston Wang (王文洋), Lin I-shou (林義守), Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) and Bob Tsao (曹興誠), Liang said.
The pro-Beijing Chinese Friendship Cities Communication Association has invited many Taiwanese borough chiefs — in particular, those who supported the DPP — to visit China this year, Liang said.
Some China-based Taiwanese businesspeople who are supporting DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the election also told the DPP they had received threatening telephone calls from Chinese provincial and city-level officials, Liang said.
“[The officials] hinted to those businesspeople that they could face problems with their tax and land lease contracts because of their political preference,” he said.
“We condemn China’s interference with Taiwan’s elections. The public’s desire for a change of government can not be stopped by such behavior,” he said.
While Beijing has refrained from using military threats, as it did before the 1996 election, it is still trying to influence Taiwan’s elections in many ways, DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said at a DPP caucus press conference.
Citing a report by the Chinese-language Business Weekly magazine, Tsai Huang-liang said China went so far as to allow Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) to brief senior Chinese officials on Ma’s “golden decade” platform at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 28.
The briefing was an indication of Beijing’s official position that it intends to help Ma win a second term, Tsai Huang-liang said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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