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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》Han offers to drop bid if China money found
Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, center, speaks in support of Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） legislative candidate Huang Jen at a rally in Taichung yesterday. Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
By Shih Hsiao-kuang and Wang Jung-hsiang / Staff reporters
Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu （韓國瑜）, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s （KMT） presidential candidate, yesterday said that he would withdraw from the race if it was shown that had accepted even a dollar from the Chinese Communist Party （CCP） for his campaign.
The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday quoted a self-confessed Chinese spy named Wang Liqiang — who reportedly defected to the Australian government this month — as saying that he had been given an assignment by his former employer, China Innovation Investment Ltd （中國創新投資有限）, to influence Taiwan’s presidential election.
Wang said that he had helped the KMT secure victories over the Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） in last year’s nine-in-one elections, the newspaper reported.
China Innovation is a Beijing operation disguised as an investment company whose founding mission was to infiltrate Hong Kong, but was later tasked with influencing elections in Taiwan, Wang said, adding that the goal of his latest mission was to unseat President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文）.
The company gave KMT candidates in last year’s local elections its “full support,” including funding, favorable media attention, building a cyberarmy to tilt political debate in their favor, donations to temples and treating templegoers to tours in China — during which they were exposed to “united front” propaganda, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Wang as saying.
The Taiwan Statebuilding Party yesterday said that Han might have broken the law by accepting political donations from a foreign nation.
Han’s campaign office should come clean about the sources of his donations, it said.
Han said that he would “withdraw from the presidential campaign if [he] had taken a dollar from the CCP.”
Ahead of last year’s elections, the National Security Bureau and Investigation Bureau said that “external forces” had been meddling with the vote, Han said.
However, more than a year has passed, which can only mean one of two things: Either the bureau directors are so incompetent that they cannot catch the culprits, or they are “crying wolf,” he said.
His campaign rival has dropped a “second nuclear bomb” with the Wang story, the first “bomb” being an allegation that he received 20 million yuan （US$2.8 million） from the CCP for his mayoral campaign, he said.
His opponents have daubed him with many colors: black, for triads, red for pro-China and yellow for pornography, he said.
Han’s campaign office urged people not to be fooled by “rumors.”
The KMT said the news about the purported defected Chinese spy was sensationalized, as it was hammered out solely from disclosures.
The government should verify the report as soon as possible to give people a full account, instead of having a field day rousing anti-China sentiment to reap electoral benefits, the party said.
As the KMT is in opposition and does not have the administrative resources to verify the report, the DPP government should establish the facts so that the elections can proceed in a fair, just and open manner without any candidate having to live in fear of being “painted red,” it said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
