Five Taiwanese businesspeople working in China were yesterday found guilty of taking money from Chinese authorities to buy votes for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) in the 2020 presidential election.
The Taipei District Court sentenced Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises (台灣同胞投資企業協會) Changsha City Branch chairman Lin Huai (林懷) to three years and 10 months in jail, with deprivation of his civil rights for four years.
The other four convicted in the case, who all received 20-month prison terms, were China New Family Association (中華兩岸新家庭協會) chairwoman Chiang Ming-sia (蔣明霞), Hunan Shaoyang City Association in Taiwan (湖南邵陽旅台同鄉會) director Chang Kuo-chun (張國君), Hengyang-based businessman Chuang Huan-chang (莊桓漳) and Chinese Women’s Federation (中華婦女聯合會) deputy secretary Shen Bin (沈斌), who had conducted business in Hunan.
Photo: CNA
A Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office investigation found that money to fund the vote-buying scheme came from Huang Daonian (黃道年), director of the Economic Bureau at Changsha’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO).
With funding from Huang, Lin and the other defendants organized gatherings and banquets to convince Taiwanese in Hunan to support the KMT and Han’s presidential campaign in late 2019, including offering to pay their airfares, the investigation found.
The Changsha City Government and the local TAO allocated 3.5 million yuan (US$551,268 at the current exchange rate) to support subsidies for Taiwanese to return home to vote, with Lin applying for and receiving about 1.49 million yuan, the investigation found.
Huang allegedly told his staff to assist Lin and other Taiwanese businesspeople in applying for funds and obtaining registered lists of Taiwanese living in Hunan, prosecutors said.
In their largest election event, the defendants on Dec. 21, 2019, organized a year-end banquet for Taiwanese at Changsha’s Huatian Hotel, where they instructed attendees to buy tickets to fly home to vote for Han and other KMT candidates on Jan. 11, 2020, and showed them how to obtain 1,500 yuan to pay for the cost of the airfares, the investigation showed.
Documents showed that 467 Taiwanese who attended the event applied for the money, prosecutors said.
Lin and the defendants gave “bribes” in exchange for votes for specific candidates and breached the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), the ruling said.
Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises in Changsha City deputy chairman Tung Chien-hua (佟建華) and Taipei-based Chinese Women’s Federation chairwoman Ho Jianghua (何建華) were indicted with the others in May last year, but were found not guilty due to insufficient evidence.
After learning of the sentences, Han’s office yesterday said that he was unaware of the events and that his election campaign headquarters did not receive any funds from those involved.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan and CNA
The International Industrial Talents Education Special (INTENSE) Program to attract foreigners to study and work in Taiwan will provide scholarships and a living allowance of up to NT$440,000 per person for two years beginning in August, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee yesterday. Pan was giving an update on the program’s implementation, a review of universities’ efforts to recruit international students and promotion of the Taiwan Huayu Bilingual Exchanges of Selected Talent (BEST) program. Each INTENSE Program student would be awarded a scholarship of up to NT$100,000 per year for up to
BASIC OPERATIONS: About half a dozen navy ships from both countries took part in the days-long exercise based on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea An unpublicized joint military exercise between Taiwan and the US in the Pacific Ocean last month was carried out in accordance with an international code, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. According to a Reuters report citing four unnamed sources, the two nations’ navies last month conducted joint drills in the Western Pacific. The drills were not made public at the time, but “about half-a-dozen navy ships from both sides, including frigates and supply and support vessels, participated in the days-long exercises,” Reuters reported, citing the sources. The drills were designed to practice “basic” operations such as communications, refueling and resupplies,
‘MONEY PIT’: The KMT’s more than NT$2 trillion infrastructure project proposals for eastern Taiwan lack professional input and financial transparency, the DPP said The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday said it would ask the Executive Yuan to raise a motion to oppose the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ infrastructure proposals and prepare to file for a constitutional interpretation if the KMT-dominated legislature forces their passage. The DPP caucus described the three infrastructure plans for transportation links to eastern Taiwan proposed by the KMT as “three money pit projects” that would cost more than NT$2 trillion (US$61.72 billion). It would ask the Executive Yuan to oppose public projects that would drain state financial resources, DPP caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said. It would also file for
SELF-SUFFICIENCY: The project would only be the beginning, as Taiwan needs at least 120 satellites to ensure uninterrupted communication, Wu Tsung-tsong said The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday said it plans to launch six low Earth orbit satellites starting in 2026 as part of the government’s plan to boost the resilience of the nation’s communications. The development of the technology gained attention after Ukrainians were able to access the Internet through Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, despite their infrastructure being severely damaged in the war with Russia. Two of the satellites would be built by the government, while four would involve cooperation between TASA and private contractors. “Over the past 30 years, the satellite technology in Taiwan has