A woman on Thursday was sentenced to four years in prison for organizing trips to China for Taiwanese in 2023, with the expenses partially paid by Chinese authorities, in an attempt to solicit votes ahead of last year’s presidential election.
The Chiayi District Court handed down the sentence, along with deprivation of civil rights for three years, to Lin Hsueh-feng (林雪峰) for using improper benefits to influence voters and contravening laws aimed at countering Chinese infiltration.
The ruling can be appealed.
Photo: Ting Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
In the run-up to the presidential election in January last year, Lin organized several group tours to Zhejiang Province for local officials from Chiayi at the invitation of the Taizhou branch of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), prosecutors said.
Each participant was charged NT$16,000 for flight tickets, transportation, and meals for the six-day trip in August, October and November in 2023, while expenses for board, lodging and local travel were paid by Taizhou’s TAO, prosecutors said.
Chinese officials promoted the idea to the participants that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family” and encouraged them to “vote for a specific political party’s candidate” in the presidential election, prosecutors said.
Lin herself also hinted to the participants that they should vote for a specific candidate in return for the trip, they said.
Lin denied that the trips were related to the presidential election and said the activities were normal exchanges between Taiwan and China, the court said.
The court said that the paid expenses were excessive and the trips were intended to influence voting.
Lin, now 54, ran unsuccessfully for Chiayi City councilor twice in 2018 and 2022 for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The court said its ruling was based on provisions of the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法) and the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), which prohibit providing improper benefits to eligible voters under the direction and funding of infiltration sources.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS