Political analyst Ross Feingold explains Taiwan's Anti-Infiltration Act and how it is enforced.
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00:00 So it's still unclear what prosecutors think this retired police officer, Liu Jiasheng,
00:06 may have done to break the law, but it has something to do with a law called the Anti-Infiltration
00:11 Act.
00:12 Can you give us an overview of what's in this law and what sorts of crimes it covers?
00:15 The Anti-Infiltration Act was passed in the final weeks of 2019, just days before the
00:22 January 2020 presidential and legislative election.
00:26 And it seeks to criminalize taking instructions or funding from hostile foreign forces, which
00:32 of course means China, and using the funding or following the instructions to influence
00:38 the presidential or other types of elections in Taiwan.
00:42 Now, the Kuomintang, the main opposition party here in Taiwan, has characterized this as
00:47 the ruling party, the government, abusing its power to persecute ordinary citizens.
00:52 What do you make of that?
00:53 Is that a valid point?
00:55 I think there's some legitimacy to that concern, because although the Anti-Infiltration Act
01:01 is meant to criminalize infiltrating Taiwan on behalf of hostile foreign forces, what
01:09 has happened in some of these cases or alleged cases is you have a person who maybe accepted
01:15 a free trip to China, or it was wined and dined by Chinese officials, government officials,
01:22 or front organization officials, but it actually in reality has zero impact on elections in
01:29 Taiwan.
01:30 So sometimes there's a gap between what the law intended to criminalize and the way it's
01:35 actually used.
01:37 Although the retired police officers actions or alleged actions may not impact the election,
01:41 this is an issue now, and there is an election in just a few days.
01:43 Do you see this having any sort of impact in terms of motivating voters to vote one
01:47 way or the other?
01:49 Probably not.
01:50 The question is, there's so much going on and so much campaigning or attempts to persuade
01:57 voters to vote for one side or the other that I don't think this particular incident is
02:01 going to rank too highly.
02:03 Keeping in mind that we're just five days away from the election, I think voters are
02:08 mostly looking at personal economic issues, issues of honesty versus corruption, and of
02:14 course, China policy.
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