Chairman of Taiwan People’s Communist Party Lin Te-wang (centre) seen during a protest. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Prosecutors in Taiwan have indicted two leaders of the island’s tiny Taiwan People’s Communist Party on accusations they colluded with China in an effort to influence next year’s elections for President and members of the legislative assembly.

Party chairman Lin Te-wang and vice-chairman Chen Chien-hsin were accused on October 3 of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act after having accepted funds and other benefits from China’s ruling Communist Party, the official Central News Agency said. It wasn’t clear whether the two men were in Taiwan when the indictments were issued.

Taiwan will elect a new President and legislators in January, and Beijing is suspected of seeking to boost the chances of politicians favouring political unification between the sides through social media and the free press and by bankrolling candidates it favours. Current Vice-President William Lai, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) strongly backs maintaining Taiwan’s current status of de-facto independence from China, is leading in most polls.

A one-time ranking member of the pro-unification opposition Nationalist Party, Lin founded the Taiwan People’s Communist Party in 2017 and has maintained close ties with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, a Cabinet-level agency dedicated to pursuing China’s unification agenda.

“Lin failed twice in bids for local government council seats and staged protests against a visit by then-speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi last year, all allegedly funded by China,” CNA reported. “He also allegedly worked as an advisor to the local Taiwan Affairs Office in China’s Shandong province,” CNA said.

No word of the indictments appeared on the party’s Facebook page and calls to its listed phone number in the southern city of Taiwan said it had been disconnected.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office condemned the indictments on Tuesday, accusing the ruling DPP of “making unjustified moves against those who advocate peaceful reunification across the Taiwan Strait,” and saying the actions were “made with malicious intentions,” China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

In their pursuit of Taiwan’s formal independence, the DPP and unidentified “separatist forces” have abused the law to suppress those advocating unification with China, office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian said.

“Such despicable acts will surely be strongly condemned and resolutely opposed by people on both sides of the Strait,” Zhu was quoted as saying.

Despite close cultural and economic ties between the two sides, surveys show the vast majority of Taiwanese oppose accepting rule under China’s authoritarian one-party system, which crushes all opposition and any form of criticism while maintaining an aggressive foreign policy toward the United States and other key Taiwanese allies.

Beijing:

China said on Wednesday its recent series of drills near Taiwan aimed at combating the “arrogance” of separatist forces, while the frontrunner to be Taiwan’s next president said China was trying to “annex” the island.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has said this month that it had observed dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, operating nearby.

The increased frequency of China’s military activities has raised the risk of events “getting out of hand” and sparking an accidental clash, the island’s defence minister has warned.

Asked about the spurt in drills, and Taiwan’s concerns about increased risk, Zhu Fenglian, the spokeswoman of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, acknowledged the drills by the People’s Liberation Army.

“The purpose is to resolutely combat the arrogance of Taiwan’s independent separatist forces and their actions to seek independence,” Zhu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

“The provocation of Taiwan independence continues all day long, and the actions of the People’s Liberation Army to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity are always ongoing,” she added.

She urged people in Taiwan to distinguish between “right and wrong”, resolutely oppose independence for the island, and work with China to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

China has a particularly strong dislike of William Lai, the frontrunner to be elected president at the island’s January elections for previous comments in support of independence.

However, he says he does not seek to change the status quo and has offered talks with Beijing.

The situation across the Taiwan Strait had “not improved due to the passage of time”, said Lai, now the island’s vice president.

“China’s attempts to annex Taiwan have not changed,” he said at an event in Taipei on Wednesday for the 37th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

China on missing defence minister

China’s armed forces have not explicitly mentioned or commented on the drills at a time when Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has gone missing from public view. Sources have told Reuters he is being investigated for corruption.

Taiwan’s democratically elected government says only the island’s people can decide their future, and has repeatedly offered talks with China, which Beijing has rejected.

On Wednesday, Taiwan’s defence ministry reported further Chinese military movements, saying it had detected and responded to 16 Chinese aircraft entering the island’s air defence identification zone over the prior 24 hours.

Of those, 12 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which had served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides until China began regularly crossing it in August last year.

On Thursday, Taiwan is set to launch the first of eight domestically made submarines as it bolsters its defences against China.

In Beijing, when asked about the submarines, Zhu said efforts by Taiwan’s DPP to “seek independence with force” would only exacerbate tensions and “push the Taiwanese people into a dangerous situation”.

In an unusual revelation last week, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it was monitoring China’s drills in the southern province of Fujian, opposite Taiwan. Normally Taiwan provides details only of drills in the skies and waters around it.

A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters the information was released to show Taiwan’s surveillance and intelligence capacity.

“We can see the details and we are prepared,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

China’s military has also not commented on the Fujian exercises.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)