Taiwan Communist Party leaders found not guilty in infiltration case

Taipei, June 9 (CNA) Two leaders of the tiny Taiwan People's Communist Party were found not guilty by the Taipei District Court on Monday of contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act and attempting to influence Taiwan's elections.

Party Chairman Lin Te-wang (林德旺) and Vice Chairman Cheng Chien-hsin (鄭建炘) were indicted in October 2023 for accepting financial support and COVID-19 test kits from China in a bid to bolster his party's election prospects in 2022.

Prosecutors alleged that such behavior and the charge that Cheng ran for the Taipei City Council with Chinese support violated the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act and the Anti-infiltration Act.

The Taipei District Court ruled on Monday, however, that during the 2022 election campaign events, Cheng had not yet been officially announced as a candidate, meaning neither Lin nor Cheng violated Article 45 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act.

As such, the court said, they could not be punished under the Anti-Infiltration Act.

The ruling can be appealed.

According to the indictment, Lin, who previously served as a Central Committee member of the Kuomintang and a representative of Taiwanese businesspeople in China, had often traveled to China for business and established several cross-strait exchange organizations since 2006.

In 2016, he was expelled from the KMT and subsequently ran unsuccessfully as an independent for legislator in a Tainan constituency. The following year, he founded the Taiwan People's Communist Party and has served as its chair since then.

Through an investigation, prosecutors suspected that Lin sought financial backing from China to support his business endeavors starting in 2017.

Acting as party chair, he made contact with several officials with China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) and repeatedly invited TAO officials to Taiwan or led delegations to China.

He had close ties with TAO official Hu Chunguang (胡春光) for over a decade, prosecutors alleged.

The prosecution charged that under the direction of Hu and other TAO officials from Yunnan Province, Lin ran for the Tainan City Council in 2018 and nominated Vice Chair Cheng to run for the Taipei City Council in 2022.

Prosecutors said they found evidence that Lin received NT$30,000 and US$10,000 in aid from the TAO, as well as 4,700 COVID-19 rapid antigen testing kits from China in a bid to boost the party's electoral support.

During former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022, Lin organized over 20 protest events, at which he attempted to distribute NT$500 and antigen test kits to participants mobilized by his party as compensation, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors argued that Lin and Cheng had been under Chinese influence for over a decade and did not cooperate with the investigation, and therefore sought severe penalties for them.

(By Lin Chang-shun and Evelyn Kao) enditem/ls