TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and his team have turned down the request of a group of Chinese human rights activists to visit their campaign headquarters, according to Liberty Times.

A Chinese delegation led by Teng Biao (滕彪), a human rights activist and lawyer from Beijing, arrived in Taiwan Tuesday (Jan. 7) to observe the country's upcoming presidential and legislative elections. The group has expressed their desire to visit the campaign headquarters of Han as well as those of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the People First Party's (PFP) James Soong (宋楚瑜).

After being granted permission to tour the election offices of Tsai and Soong, Teng and his fellow colleagues were surprised to find that Han had denied them entrance to his headquarters. Teng said he suspected that the reason behind Han's decision was largely due to his unsettled stance on cross-strait relations and his opinions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Teng said that he was present during Taiwan's local elections of 2018 but that the presidential election is on a different scale. He emphasized that Saturday's (Jan. 11) elections hold significant importance in deciding the future of Taiwan and the likelihood of unification with Communist China.

A lecturer at the University of Politics and Law in Beijing, Teng said that "Freedom and democracy are way more valuable than being rich," adding that he sincerely hopes that Taiwanese voters will inspect all the candidates before casting their ballots. He observed that Soong wants to tend to Taiwan's own affairs with little cross-strait interaction, while Tsai advocates for human rights in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang.

Teng also warned that if Han becomes the country's leader, the KMT-run government would most likely ignore all violations of human rights in China. He said that the CCP has put in a lot of effort to infiltrate this year's elections, hoping to silence the Taiwanese people for the next four years.