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
SOURED RELATIONS: Program director Jennifer Liu said the move to Taipei was due to a ‘perceived lack of friendliness’ from Beijing Language and Culture University Harvard University is to relocate its summer Mandarin program from Beijing to National Taiwan University (NTU) starting next year, a student publication reported on Thursday last week. Run at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) since 2004, the Harvard Beijing Academy is to become the Harvard Taipei Academy once it moves to Taiwan, Crimson magazine reported. Program director Jennifer Liu (劉力嘉) attributed the decision to a “perceived lack of friendliness” from the Chinese university, potentially due to shifting political winds. Liu told the magazine that BLCU in recent years had failed to provide a single dorm for the students or separate accommodation of
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday issued a rebuttal to former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who said a fistfight in the Legislative Yuan might have been “provoked from the outside” to destabilize Taiwan. Rice made the comment in an online discussion about the AUKUS alliance of Australia, the UK and the US hosted by the Policy Exchange forum in London on Thursday. On mention of Taiwan, she was quoted by The Australian as predicting that Beijing would use paramilitary forces and acts of sabotage to destabilize the nation. “There was a fistfight in the Taiwanese parliament a few weeks ago
ADVANCING TECH: With revenue on target to reach US$15.4 billion, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said it is looking to produce 3-nanometer chips later this year Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday announced plans to build a new plant in Japan next year to produce 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer chips in its latest effort to expand its global manufacturing footprint. The Japanese fab is to start operations in 2024, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker said, ending months of speculation. “We have received strong commitment to supporting this project from our customers and the Japanese government,” TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told a quarterly investors’ conference. “We believe the expansion of our global manufacturing footprint will enable us to better serve our customers’ needs and reach global talent,
KNOWN ISSUES: Fire safety issues were found in the 40-year-old building, which previously housed a theater and restaurants, in 2019, last year and May, an official said Forty-six people died and 41 were injured in a building fire that raged out of control for hours overnight in Kaohsiung, authorities said yesterday. Flames and smoke billowed from the lower floors of the 13-story Cheng Chung Cheng (城中城) building on Fubei Road in Yancheng District (鹽埕), as firefighters tried to douse the blaze from the street and aerial platforms. The death toll rose steadily through the day as rescue workers searched the combined commercial and residential building. By late afternoon, authorities said 32 bodies had been found, while a further 14 people who showed no signs of life were among 55
RSS