The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch in a second ruling on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision, finding Chinese immigrant Tsai Zhan-ping (蔡占萍) not guilty of contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) by funding borough wardens to visit China in 2023.
Tsai moved from Jiangsu Province to Taiwan after marrying a Taiwanese 20 years ago. She is chair of the Greater Kaohsiung Cross-Strait Cultural and Economic Exchange Promotion Association.
Kaohsiung district prosecutors in December 2023 detained Tsai on suspicion of organizing a group tour to China for 30 borough wardens in exchange for their support for pro-China candidates in an election.
Photo: Reuters
Prosecutors said that Beijing had funded all the expenses of Tsai’s group except the airfares in a bid to secure the cooperation of borough wardens in China’s election meddling.
They presented Tsai’s political comments in the group tour’s Line chat room after her return to Taiwan and the financial records of the trip as circumstantial evidence of a quid pro quo exchange.
The Kaohsiung District Court in the first ruling in February found Tsai not guilty, citing insufficient evidence to substantiate the charges.
Tsai made political posts on Line a month following the trip, which weakened the correlation between the group’s visit to China and political activities, the court said.
Prosecutors did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the wardens had paid for their dining and accommodation expenses with money from the Chinese government, it said.
The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch maintained the lower court’s decision, although the ruling can still be appealed.
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) expressed disappointment at the court’s decision.
The council hopes the public would continue to support prosecutors and police who handle the difficult task of investigating Chinese election meddling, he said.
Judges apply a high level of scrutiny to criminal offenses, including breaches of the Anti-Infiltration Act and the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), said Lo Cheng-chung (羅承宗), a law professor at the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology.
Securing a conviction without definitive evidence is exceedingly difficult, Lo said, adding that precedent suggests the courts are inclined to give light sentences when they find the defendants guilty.
Establishing a national security court would not help prosecutors win cases if they do not have strong evidence, and espionage and foreign influence cases rarely leave a trail for investigators to follow, he said.
Police and prosecutors cannot access China-based banking records or digital platform transactions, making national security cases difficult for prosecutors to bring to trial, he added.
Taiwan’s national security apparatus should consider making better use of the executive branch’s powers to prevent dangerous contact between Taiwanese and Chinese officials, instead of relying on the courts, Lo said.
Also on Thursday, Taipei district prosecutors decided not to indict seven borough wardens in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) on charges related to suspicions that Beijing had funded trips to Shanghai to obtain support for pro-China candidates in the election.
Investigators did not find enough evidence of alleged electoral fraud to build a case, the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.
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