2 'hometown association' heads indicted over China-funded trip

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) Taipei prosecutors on Tuesday indicted the heads of two Chinese hometown associations in Taiwan for organizing a China-funded trip to Anhui Province for local Kuomintang (KMT) officials before Taiwan's January 2024 elections.

The presidents of the Taiwan and Taipei Anhui Province hometown associations, a man and woman surnamed Lee (李) and Song (宋), respectively, were indicted for violations of the Anti-Infiltration Act, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office said in a statement.

"Hometown associations" are social organizations for people who came to Taiwan from the same part of China, in many cases during the Chinese Civil War, as well as their descendants.

Prosecutors said Lee and Song had acted at the request of Liao Jian (繆劍), head of the Anhui Province Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), to recruit 24 KMT party officials and ward chiefs from Taipei's Wanhua and Nangang districts for the trip.

Under the terms of the Oct. 29-Nov. 5, 2023 trip, participants had to cover their own airfare costs and pay NT$16,830 (US$526.27) for the first night's accommodation.

All other food, hotel and transportation expenses on the trip, totaling around NT$33,000 each, were paid for by the Anhui TAO, as a means of "influencing voting preferences" in Taiwan's Jan. 13, 2024 elections, prosecutors said.

After arriving in Anhui on Oct. 29, the participants were taken on guided tours of Hefei, Lu'an and Huaibei cities, where they met or were accompanied by Anhui TAO officials, as well as the deputy head of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department in Anhui Province, prosecutors said.

The Taiwanese tour group was also taken to multiple lunch and dinner banquets, where TAO officials gave speeches urging them to oppose Taiwanese independence and think of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as "one family."

At once such meal on Oct. 31, Lee urged participants to support KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), and expressed hope that the election would bring about "major changes" that would allow the KMT to engage more with China.

In the indictment, prosecutors said Lee and Song knowingly violated the Anti-Infiltration Act's prohibitions on accepting funding from "a source of infiltration" to support a specific political party or candidate.

The 24 participants on the trip were not charged, however, since there was insufficient evidence that they understood the quid pro quo relationship between the trip's funding and their support for a political candidate, prosecutors said.