Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: 勤岸/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
ISSUES REGARDING local corruption are again in the news, with a number of pan-Blue Taitung city councilors questioned about the use of public funds to build a resort.
The resort, the Dongying International Resort, is linked to the family of Taitung County Council Speaker Wu Hsiu-hua. In May, independent city councillor Lin Tsan-tian raised during a county council meeting that public funds had been used to expand a road leading to the Dongying International Resort. Though the road was originally supposed to be three meters wide, it was expanded to nine meters wide. Reportedly, the road is also at least partly on state-owned land. For its part, Taitung authorities claimed the road was to benefit local farmers and prevent accidents, though no accidents had occurred on the road in the past decade.
What raised suspicion was that the discretionary funding of several city councilors was used on the road. Lin pointed to that while county councilors usually use discretionary funding to help repair roads or assist farmers to construct water tanks, they do not usually pool their discretionary funding on a road in this way.
In the wake of Lin’s questioning, a probe was launched. Seven city councilors have been questioned to date, six of whom are members of the KMT, and one of whom is a member of the People First Party. Wu was recently endorsed by Taichung mayor Lu Shiow-yen of the KMT in the upcoming elections.
Nevertheless, issues of corruption are far from unheard of in rural areas in Miaoli. Recently, KMT Legislative Caucus Leader Fu Kun-chi, who represents Hualien, came under scrutiny after former Financial Times journalist Kathrin Hille referenced widespread vote buying in Hualien during an interview on FTV.
Fu has long faced allegations of vote buying, not only in Hualien, but in the KMT Central Standing Committee election. Fu’s wife, Hsu Cheng-wei, is currently Hualien county magistrate, and she originally took up the post after Fu was arrested on corruption charges. Prior to his jailing, Fu divorced Hsu and named her deputy county commissioner to skirt nepotism laws, leading to a lawsuit against him over a fake divorce. Though Fu was previously kicked out of the KMT for his actions, he has since been welcomed back in because of his ability to win elections, and consequently risen to become KMT legislative caucus leader.
Other recent cases of high-profile corruption have also involved pan-Blue county magistrates. In January 2025, former Nantou county magistrate Lee Chao-ching, a former KMT member, was sentenced on charges totaling 656 years and four months in jail.
Charges facing Lee were mostly regarding kickbacks for reconstruction projects after Typhoon Morakot, which struck Taiwan in August 2009. Lee reportedly demanded 10% in kickbacks for reconstruction projects, which were passed to him in gift boxes of tea and fruit.
In December 2024, former Yilan county magistrate Lin Zi-miao was sentenced to 12.5 years in jail on charges of corruption. The charges against Lin date to 2022, when Lin came under scrutiny in connection to a development project on a 108-hectare plot of land in Luodong that was originally protected. However, the land was later rezoned for agricultural use in 2018, though residential building construction and public infrastructure development were allowed on the plot. The plot’s rezoning, as well as related land disputes, were seen as suggesting lawbreaking. This was quickly linked to Lin, seeing as the purchaser of the plot of land after its rezoning was Lin Shu-mei’s son. Lin Shu-mei, a former member of the National Assembly before its abolition, is Lin Zi-miao’s cousin and is a fellow member of the KMT.
Lin then came under scrutiny for checks worth over 100 million NT received by Lin or her family members from former KMT legislator Yang Chi-hsiung. Yang was known to have had a close relationship with Lin when he served as legislator, assisting Lin electorally. Likewise, several of Lin Zi-miao’s children worked in a mining company under Yang’s name.
Issues of local corruption continue to be commonplace in Taiwan, then. It is to be seen if charges stick in Taitung or, as with so many other cases, they simply bounce off.