Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Jiang/Public Domain
IN THE PRECEDING legislative session, the KMT, TPP, and DPP all proposed to pass legislation against forced organ harvesting. This proves a somewhat unusual move, seeing as during a time characterized by stark partisanship, it has been rare for the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps to come together to support any legislation.
Under the new laws, forced organ harvesting could result in seven or more years in jail, as well as fines of over one million NT. If instances of organ harvesting lead to severe injury for a victim, jail sentences would be from 10 years in jail to life imprisonment. As for organ harvesting that leads to the death of a victim, sentences would range from 12 years to life imprisonment. Fines would be between 3 million NT and 30 million NT in such cases that result in death, while for severe injuries, this would be 2 million NT and 20 million NT.
The three parties have cited efforts by the United States and the European Union to take action on forced organ harvesting, hence the move. Likewise, victims of fraud who are human trafficked to countries in Southeast Asia, such as Taiwanese human trafficked to Cambodia, were also raised as an example of why there was a need for Taiwan to take action on organ harvesting.
Still, what proved surprising was that the bill brought up how cases of forced organ harvesting consistently take place in China. As such, the bill would block Taiwanese civil servants or medical workers from traveling to China to participate in organ transplants, tissue harvesting, or similar acts. Professional qualifications for those who participate in such activity would be revoked.
The Chinese government has long been accused of forced organ harvesting in China. Among those who are victims of forced organ harvesting are members of the Falun Gong religious group, as well as Uyghurs.
No less than TPP founder, former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, has faced allegations of participating in forced organ harvesting. Such allegations against Ko, in fact, date back to before his present political alignment with the pan-Blue camp but during when he was considered a pan-Green politician.
Photo credit: Tianmu peter/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0
Ko was accused of allowing for the transplant of organs from Falun Gong practitioners during his time as director of the Department of Traumatology at the National Taiwan University Hospital. Ironically, at the time, the KMT was among those to lean into the allegations against him.
Moreover, as the pro-China party in Taiwanese politics, the KMT has sometimes downplayed allegations against the Chinese government. In 2021, when the KMT faced calls to boycott Xinjiang cotton because of allegations of the use of forced Uyghur labor, KMT politicians largely claimed that there was not enough evidence to prove the existence of labor camps in Xinjiang. As the imprisonment of Uyghurs in what are termed “reeducation camps” is one of the rationales for the Olympics boycott, the KMT may seek to cast similar doubt on whether the boycott is justified, in line with its broader pro-unification political agenda. Chiang Wan-an, then a KMT legislator and now mayor of Taipei, was among those to downplay such allegations.
But the present political mood is very different than in 2021. As such, it may not surprise if the KMT and TPP are seeking to appear less pro-China by criticizing Chinese forced organ harvesting.
Still, such efforts by the pan-Blue camp to mitigate its image are likely to be undercut by ideological diehards within the party. It has increasingly become the case that prominent pan-Blue legislators, such as Weng Hsiao-ling, Hsu Chiao-hsin, Chen Yu-chen, and May Chin have all declared Taiwanese to be Chinese, or suggested that China would never attack Taiwan because “Chinese never make war on Chinese”. It is surprising, to begin with, that such legislators did not try to shoot down legislation against organ harvesting and more concerted attempts by the KMT to change its image are likely to see challenges from them.