TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤), a DPP lawmaker and cosplayer, faces a series of controversies involving alleged corruption, nuclear power, green energy, the New Tide faction, press freedom, assault and sexism.
So, who is Lai? If one is listening to the pan-blue camp, she is an arrogant, privileged princess and drama queen at the center of web of sleaze and fat cat dealmaking with the government enriching her family and the New Tide faction using taxpayer money.
If you follow the pan-green camp, she’s a principled, idealistic woman serving the public who is being unfairly and misogynistically slandered and physically harassed.
Lai got involved in political activism in the early 2010s and rose to prominence during the Sunflower Movement in 2014, where she picked up the nickname “Goddess of War.” She is also well-known for her love of cosplay, and to my untrained eye looks to be fairly good at it.
She has printed her cosplay handle “Souichi” on her campaign vest, which appears to be a Japanese cultural reference. Doing a search for Souichi turns up a Japanese manga character who is described this way on fandom.com:
“He is usually seen biting iron/steel nails in his mouth due to the lack of iron in his body.
Like many of Junji Ito’s antagonist characters, Souichi is known for his schemes, though many of them backfire in comedic and ironic ways.”
Now she’s biting nails of a different sort, and may struggle in her campaign to get re-elected. In 2020, at age 29 she was elected as the youngest legislator with a tiny 2780 margin.
'Taiwan’s cosplaying politician'
Lai is no stranger to the press and has attracted plenty of international attention as ‘Taiwan’s cosplaying politician.” She often releases new cosplay pictures that make the local press. However, this August she has been in the news for different reasons.
The first incident involved her cosplay hobby. Holger Chen (陳之漢), an internet celebrity who defended TPP candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) against accusations of objectifying women, attacked Lai's cosplay costumes. He said "you in the DPP, dressed up so hot, those boobs are about to pop out." He also questioned her achievements as a lawmaker.
Lai Pin-yu in cosplay mode. (Facebook image)
Lai responded with a list of 23 accomplishments she had delivered for her constituents. She also mocked Chen's ignorance, saying "I've only been in office about three and a half years, the four years before that it was Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌)." KMT lawmaker Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) supported Lai on both attacks, saying Lai was doing her job and her cosplay hobby was not a problem.
The next attacks were from the KMT and were more serious. They accused Lai of helping her father's business with her anti-nuclear and pro-green energy stances and votes. Her father, Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟), is a former DPP lawmaker and deputy minister who later became the CEO of J&V Energy, a green energy company that won many government contracts.
They also suggested that Lai Chin-lin and others in the industry were favored by the New Tide faction, the most powerful faction in the DPP headed by Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), who is unrelated to them. They claimed that the government was rewarding them with high levels of political donations to the DPP, especially New Tide candidates.
Lai denied these allegations and said her votes followed the DPP's party line. The DPP pointed out that many former KMT politicians and officials were also involved in green energy companies.
'Little Princess'
Between 2018 and 2022, Lai Chin-lin and J&V companies allegedly donated NT$7.78 million to political parties, with about 80% to 85% going to the DPP. There was no evidence of anything illegal, but it raised suspicions of cronyism.
The pan-blues have a special hatred and fear of New Tide, which is shared by TPP candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who sometimes supports the DPP but not New Tide.
Lai defended her father vigorously. She was mocked as the "J&V little princess." Her father resigned all his CEO positions quietly. Lai was angry and said there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
All this controversy made Lai a hot topic in the press. The news channels followed her around at public events. She fell into a video camera and fell to the ground while leaving an event.
She said she was pushed by a journalist from CTiTV News, a pan-blue news outlet that was taken off cable by the NCC for rules violations and moved to Youtube. She accused him of regular harassment and called him a "fake reporter from the fake news industry." He denied the accusations and CTiTV sued Lai for "slanderous framing."
The response was partisan. Pan-blue politicians called her fall "fake" and KMT candidate Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) called her "winner of the Golden Horse award for best actress, aka blame-shifting little princess."
Videos of the incident were not conclusive because other reporters blocked the view. Pan-greens showed videos that they said "proved" Lai's side of the story, while pan-blues showed videos that they said "proved" the CTiTV reporter's side of the story.
Looking forward we will examine what happened in depth and what it says about local political, press and societal standards.