Three people have been sentenced to jail terms of up to two years for receiving over US$8,000 from Beijing to hold political campaigns and promote pro- China united front activities in Taiwan in contravention of the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法).
The Taipei District Court yesterday found Gong He Party Chairman Chou Ke-chi (周克琦) guilty of the Anti- Infiltration Act violations and sentenced him to two years in jail.
Chu Chun-yuan (朱俊源) and Pan Jindong (潘進東), board members of the Taipei Puxian Association that prosecutors said was connected to the Gong He Party, received sentences of one year and 18 months in prison, respectively.
Photo: Tsung Chang-chin, Taipei Times
The decision is subject to appeal.
Pan, originally a Chinese national, moved to Taiwan in 2002 and later obtained a Taiwan national identification card, according to the indictment by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.
He served as an executive director of the 21st Taipei Puxian Association and in 2021, was appointed deputy director of a Mazu cultural ceramic art museum in Putian City in China’s Fujian Province, the indictment said.
Stationed in Taiwan and responsible for cross-strait cultural exchanges, he was instructed by officials from the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of Putian -- specifically, a section chief surnamed Chen (陳) and deputy director surnamed Xue (薛) -- to promote Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “united front” activities in Taiwan with Chu.
Prosecutors said Chou and Chu, as the party chairman and a director of the association, have long been involved in cross-strait exchanges related to Mazu as well as labor and cultural affairs and also had close ties with the TAO in Putian.
In Taiwan’s 2022 local elections, Chou and Chu ran for Taipei mayor and city council seats under the Gong He Party banner, holding pro-China and pro-unification stances, and openly supporting the CCP, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said an investigation found that the three received NT$45,000 (US$1,540) in funding from China for their party’s campaign activities in 2022.
That same year, while the World Movement for Democracy was being held in Taipei from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27, Pan and Chou planned a protest outside the venue.
They submitted their proposal to Xue, who approved a 50,000 Chinese yuan.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the