The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau is investigating 33 cases of alleged Chinese funding to candidate campaigns for the Nov. 24 elections, bureau Director-General Leu Wen-jong (呂文忠) said yesterday.
Asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus deputy secretary-general William Tseng (曾銘宗) during a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee whether the suspect funds were coming directly from the Chinese government or affiliated organizations, Leu said: “You could say that.”
Many of the cases involved donations made through Taiwanese businesses in China, Leu said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
When Tseng asked if any of the donations could have simply been made by those businesses, without Chinese help, Leu said the bureau has evidence that China is attempting to influence the elections by funding certain candidates and is preparing cases for prosecution.
If Taiwanese businesses were making the donations on their own, they would be legal, but the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法) and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) prohibit donations made by Chinese individuals or entities, Leu said.
China has been attempting to circumvent these laws by making donations in other ways, such as through China-based Taiwanese businesses, with the money coming from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, he said.
Four cases that are being investigated by prosecutors in Taipei and Changhua, Yunlin and Pingtung counties are being treated as alleged vote-buying, the bureau said.
Leu said Beijing had also invited some influential community leaders to visit China on all-expenses-paid trips in return for their backing of China’s favored candidates, but he would not give more details when pressed by committee members.
The bureau has identified certain candidates it believes are being funded by Beijing and it is building cases against them, he added.
The Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office has conducted raids on two underground money exchanges, he said.
The raids were part of preparations for next month’s meeting of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering and aimed at cracking down on campaign violations, as some money meant to influence the elections has been flowing into the exchanges from China, he said.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) told the committee that the council was already looking into the cases, but needed more specific information from the bureau.
Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) called on the police to step up measures against foreign interference in next month’s elections.
Additional reporting by CNA
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique