Taiwan High Court convicts two over Beijing-funded China trips

Taipei, Feb. 12 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court on Thursday overturned a lower court ruling and found two people guilty of arranging Beijing-subsidized trips to China for local ward chiefs and their relatives, sentencing them to prison for election bribery offenses.

The defendants are John Yao (姚韋華), a ward chief in New Taipei's Tucheng District, and Ann Chein (簡安仕), head of the Youthex Organization, a New Taipei-based group promoting youth cultural and arts exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

The High Court sentenced Yao to two years and six months in prison and Chein to four years and eight months. Both were also stripped of their civil rights. The ruling may still be appealed.

Investigators said Chein accepted funding from the Nanjing Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office in September 2023 and asked Yao to recruit five ward chiefs and nine relatives for a group trip to China in November that year.

While in China, the participants received free accommodation and meals but were required to pay NT$16,500 (about US$526) each for airfare, investigators said.

The 14-member delegation traveled to Nanjing and Huai'an in Jiangsu Province.

During banquets, banners reading "Both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family" were displayed, and officials from the Taiwan Affairs Office promoted ideas such as cooperation between Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People's Party, which investigators said was intended to influence Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections in January 2024.

The New Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted Yao and Chein in 2024 for violations of the Anti-Infiltration Act and election laws, but did not charge the other ward chiefs and relatives who joined the trip.

The New Taipei District Court initially acquitted the two, ruling that evidence was insufficient to show the trips constituted bribery aimed at influencing voting behavior. Prosecutors appealed.

In its ruling on Thursday, the High Court reversed the acquittal, finding that the defendants had committed election bribery by accepting funding from an infiltration source to provide improper benefits to eligible voters in exchange for inducing them not to exercise their voting rights or to vote in a particular way.

The court has yet to release detailed reasoning for its decision and sentencing.