Five more can be added to the list of those indicted for attacking Taiwanese at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. The victim is a comedian who made the CCP and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping the butt of his jokes (Associated Press, October 21, 2026).
Comedian Huang Yihao [shown above] told Taiwan’s Central News Agency that he had parked his scooter in an alley last month when a car suddenly swerved toward him, striking him and his scooter. He escaped severe injury, but said his initial thought was “could this be the CCP coming after me?” Then, he said, the people in the car got out and apologized, and invited him to sit in their vehicle, which he turned down.
The five suspects, who are all Taiwanese, are accused of accepting 450,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$13,900) to “break arms and legs” of Huang so he couldn’t perform on stage, New Taipei District prosecutors said Wednesday.
The five suspects, identified only by their surnames Zheng, You, Huang, Fan and Liao, received directions and funding from someone nicknamed “K” from mainland China, the prosecutors’ statement said.
“K” asked Zheng to collect the comedian’s personal information and to injure him badly enough to require hospitalization and prevent him from performing as scheduled on Sept. 20….
Before the alleged attempt in September, charges of intimidation endangering public safety and property damage were filed against two other people who allegedly spread paint and human waste in May outside a comedy club in Taipei where Huang performed, according to local media reports.
Zheng collected NT$250,000 (around $7,700 USD) from Mr. K after putting a tracking device on comedian Huang’s scooter and tracking him for a couple of months. But Mr. K refused to pay him and the others the balance of the agreed-upon blood money when it turned out that Huang Yihao was not as badly injured by the “accident” as K had required.
The information given to reporters is detailed enough to suggest that one or more of the thugs have told all to prosecutors, who seem to have enough evidence to convict. The report does not mention K’s fate but surely would have said something if he had been nabbed too. He may be across the strait plotting his next premonitory act of transnational repression.
The comedian makes a point that we must hope has occurred to most Taiwanese, though it seems to have eluded many in the Kuomintang camp. “If people are already being treated this way for criticizing the CCP even before it has come to rule Taiwan, how can we possibly expect to retain our current freedom of speech should the CCP ever gain control over Taiwan?”
