Taiwan Candidate Says China Plots to Kill Him

Taiwan’s leading pro-independence candidate said he has been targeted by a China-sponsored hit man, and security for all presidential candidates has been stepped up in advance of Saturday’s election.

Peng Ming-min, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party candidate, said the National Security Council, Taiwan’s top security organization, warned him of reports that an assassin has been hired to eliminate him. Liu Chia-chi, a council official, confirmed that dangerous elements are believed to be “plotting something against one of the candidates.”

But Peng, whose stump-speech theme is “Taiwan is already independent,” said he won’t be deterred. “I have feared for my life since I was arrested in 1964 . . . so this is not a new experience for me--I accept the risk,” he said today at a campaign news conference in Taipei.

On Tuesday, Peng said on television: “Neither I nor any Taiwanese will accept this kind of threat. We must still make all efforts to promote democracy.”

If any of the candidates dies before Saturday’s vote, the election would be canceled, according to the “death clause” of Taiwan’s presidential election law.

The director of DPP headquarters, Maysing Yang, said the security council advised Peng on Monday that it was on the lookout for a 44-year-old Chinese-born man named Yang who reportedly had been paid $5 million and brought into Taiwan from the United States by Chinese backers.

China has declared that it will forcibly retake Taiwan, which it claims as its own, if the island’s leaders move toward independence.

As China has pressed its point with intensifying military exercises, support for Peng has faded.

Undeterred, Peng continued his active campaigning Tuesday, plunging into crowds to shake hands in the city of Tainan, although he was accompanied by four additional security guards. His campaign director said Peng will probably wear a bulletproof vest.

There are reasons for the security council to take the reports seriously. The daughter and mother of a current DPP official were killed in 1980. Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui reportedly received death threats in October.

When campaigning, all four candidates in Saturday’s election reportedly will receive a detail of 50 security officials, positioned in three protective circles, plus lookouts posted on rooftops.

Peng’s campaign mirrors that of Lee, his rival and onetime classmate. Both once agitated for Taiwanese sovereignty, and Lee was one of the last people Peng saw before he was arrested in 1964.

Peng was imprisoned for six years, then escaped into exile for more than two decades before returning to Taiwan from the United States in 1992 after his erstwhile ally Lee had become president and, according to Peng, “traded his ideals for power.”

Last month, the two shook hands for the first time in 30 years.