Taiwanese jailed for buying votes for China-friendly candidate via lavish dinners and air tickets

Supporters at a rally held by Kuomintang's 2020 presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Jan 11, 2020. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

TAIPEI – Lavish banquets and heavily subsidised plane tickets were just some of the perks that a group of China-based Taiwanese businessmen offered in their attempt to convince other Taiwanese to vote for a Beijing-friendly candidate in the island’s 2020 presidential elections.

On Wednesday, the Taiwan High Court sentenced Lin Huai to three years and two months in jail, while four other people, said to have followed his lead, were given five years’ probation.

They were found guilty of accepting funds from the Chinese authorities to buy votes for the Taiwan opposition Kuomintang’s (KMT) then-presidential nominee Han Kuo-yu, prosecutors said.

Lin was based in China’s Hunan province, where he was chairman of the Changsha city branch of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises, a group that promotes economic co-operation between China and Taiwan businesses.

The other four people had business dealings in the same province.

According to an investigation by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, funds for their vote-buying scheme had come from Mr Huang Daonian, a Changsha-based director at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO).

The funds amounted to nearly 1.5 million yuan (S$288,000), findings revealed.

Taiwanese officials and scholars have long accused China, which views the island as a breakaway province to be reunited with the mainland, of repeated attempts to influence local politics, through online disinformation campaigns or coercive economic manoeuvres.

At the presidential elections in 2020, KMT’s Mr Han lost badly to incumbent Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

KMT traditionally favours warmer ties with Beijing, although it strongly denies being pro-China.

In order to drum up support for Mr Han, Lin and the others organised a series of banquets for other Taiwanese living in China, where the event emcees would shout slogans in support of the candidate and the party, prosecutors said.

In their largest such event held at a local luxury hotel in Changsha in December 2019, lucky draw prizes including mobile phones were given out, as well as the option for participants to sign up for heavily subsidised plane tickets to fly to Taiwan.

As long as the attendees boarded flights in time to return home and vote for Mr Han a month later, they would only need to fork out around 10 yuan each after receiving subsidies worth 1,550 yuan, the investigation found.

A total of 467 people took up the offer, prosecutors said.

Absentee voting, for example postal ballots, is not allowed in Taiwanese elections.

Beijing has previously denied accusations of interfering in Taiwan’s elections.

In response to Lin’s case, a TAO spokesman said earlier this year that her office condemned the DPP for “framing Taiwan compatriots”.

“The DPP authorities are accustomed to fabricating various excuses to attack Taiwanese businessmen and compatriots, and Taiwanese groups and individuals involved in cross-strait exchanges and cooperation,” she added.

Taiwan’s 2020 presidential candidate for the Kuomintang party Han Kuo-yu (in black) bowing to supporters at a rally on Jan 11, 2020. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

In the book Chinese Election Interference In Taiwan, author Edward J. Barss examined past instances of alleged interference by Beijing to sway Taiwanese voter behaviour – including the Communist Party of China working with Taiwanese businessmen in China to hold campaign events, among other things.

“The effect of which is to create the appearance that cross-strait economic ties, support for the KMT, and Taiwan’s economy are mutually dependent on one another,” he wrote.

During last weekend’s municipal elections, the KMT thrashed the DPP, winning 13 out of 21 city mayor and county chief seats. The DPP won only five seats.

While Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that the island saw less Chinese interference ahead of the local polls – which he said could be due to China being busy with its domestic issues – attention has now turned to Taiwan’s presidential elections, which will be held just 14 months later.

Given that Ms Tsai must step down in 2024 owing to term limits, the race to the island’s top post appears unpredictable, analysts have said.

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