Three people connected with China-funded organizations, including Chou Ke-chi (周克琦) who heads the Gong He Party (共和黨), were indicted yesterday for contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法).
Along with Chou, who also heads the pro-China agitation group 333 Political Alliance (333政黨聯盟), Pan Jindong (潘進東) and Chu Chun-yuan (朱俊源), board members of the Taipei Puxian Association (莆仙同鄉會), were also indicted. Puxian is another name for Putian, a city in China’s Fujian Province.
The three are the first people Taipei prosecutors have charged for contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act since it was passed by the legislature in 2020 to counter the influence of foreign hostile forces seeking to meddle in Taiwan’s elections.
Photo: Tsung Chang-chin, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said that an investigation found that Chou had received money from China to pay for him to organize activities against Taiwanese independence groups, denounce efforts to improve Taiwan-US relations and carry out targeted protests against the US National Endowment for Democracy during the World Movement for Democracy’s Global Assembly in Taipei in October last year.
Money from China also allegedly helped to fund the Gong He Party’s candidates for Taipei mayor and city councilor offices in the nine-in-one elections in November last year, prosecutors said.
Pan and Chu allegedly made frequent trips to China, including Putian, to channel money to Chou, prosecutors said.
Photo: Tsung Chang-chin, Taipei Times
The indictment said that Pan was born in China’s Fujian Province and immigrated to Taiwan in 2002 with family, later becoming a Taiwanese citizen.
In China, government officials allegedly invited Pan to serve as deputy director of the Putian Porcelain Arts Museum, which is funded and controlled by the city’s Taiwan Affairs Office, prosecutors said.
The office focuses on “united front” activities targeting Taiwanese businesspeople and students, and also allegedly provides money to conduct pro-China propaganda campaigns in Taiwan, they said.
Pan and Chu allegedly were charged with carrying out “united front” activities and fielding pro-China candidates for elected office, they said.
The pair allegedly provided Chou with NT$220,000 last year, which contravenes laws on registered political parties receiving funds from foreign sources, prosecutors said.
Chou allegedly used the money to make flags and print pamphlets for the Gong He Party, as well as to organize rallies to espouse Chinese political propaganda, they said.
He also allegedly used the money for campaigning for the party’s Taipei mayoral candidate, Tang hsin-min (唐新民), and those running for city councilor seats, they said.
Tang received 316 votes, or 0.02 percent, in the election, while the party’s councilor candidates received a combined 67 votes, data from the Central Election Commission showed.
Chou and Pan allegedly organized a protest outside the World Movement for Democracy’s Global Assembly last year, paying 65 people NT$200 to NT$250 to attend the demonstration, along with other expenses, prosecutors said.
Chou, Pan and Chu also allegedly collaborated to record and compile videos and briefs on their campaigns and protest activities, sending them to their Chinese handlers through WeChat, they said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.