Recently, there was heavy news in the basketball industry in Taiwan Province, and Dwight Howard, the former draft pick of the American Professional Basketball League, signed a one-year contract with the Taoyuan Yongfeng Cloud Leopards in Taiwan Province, becoming the largest American foreign aid in the history of basketball on the island. The company behind the Taoyuan Yongfeng Clouded Leopard Club he signed up with is Taiwan's Clouded Leopard Energy Technology Company, and the chairman is Lai Jinlin, a former representative of the Democratic Progressive Party's legislative body. The Lai family is also a political family on the island, and Lai Jinlin not only served as a public opinion representative of the Democratic Progressive Party's legislative body, but also a colleague of Tsai Ing-wen. When Chen Ju, a DPP boss, worked at Taiwan's Labor Commission, Lai Jinlin was her deputy. And now Lai Jinlin's daughter Lai Pinyu has also inherited her father's political mantle and become a representative of public opinion in the prestigious legislature. And Howard's joining the Taiwan basketball team may also hide the conspiracy and calculation of the island's politics, and what the specific situation is, I will slowly tell.
Howard joined the Taiwan basketball team
The history of the Yunlin Lai family
Lai Jinlin was born in 1962 in Yunlin County, Taiwan Province, and graduated from the Department of Political Science of National Taiwan University. Since Chiang Kai-shek's death in Taiwan and Chiang Ching-kuo took over power, the social atmosphere on the island has begun to permeate a trend of "opposing the Kuomintang." Except for the elites on the island who fought for power in order to compete with the Kuomintang. Grassroots workers' dissatisfaction with the Kuomintang is also rising. After the rapid economic boom on the island, although the wages of workers have risen, they have borne the pressure of heavy work and the pressure of business owners, working longer hours and less and less vacation. Around 1980, Taiwanese companies hired a large number of non-regular employees in the name of "labor flexibility" to reduce costs, which also caused workers to complain. And their remuneration is a drop in the bucket compared to business owners, which is not worth mentioning. Therefore, in order to strive for more holidays, a more suitable working environment and more humane working hours, they have also embarked on the road of opposing the Kuomintang. The Miaoli passenger strike of 1988 was a concentrated outbreak of contradictions, and Lai Jinlin also participated in the rising labor movement.
Workers' struggle
At the beginning of its founding, the DPP also reached a cooperation agreement with the workers' movement on the island, and the two sides joined hands to launch an attack on a single Kuomintang. After joining the Democratic Progressive Party, Lai Jinlin also served as secretary general of the Taiwan Labor Movement Support Association for a time, and even served within public opinion organs at all levels on the island. In 1999, Lai Jinlin joined the Taiwan Provincial legislature as a public opinion representative. In 2002, Lai Jinlin was successfully re-elected, and the current leader of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, also became a representative of the legislature in 2004, and the two are considered colleagues. In 2000, when DPP boss Chen Ju became director of the Labor Committee of Taiwan's provincial administrative body, the labor movement focused on shortening working hours and reducing work pressure. According to the World Competitiveness Annual Report, the average number of working hours a year for ordinary people in Taiwan Province exceeded 2,200 at that time, and many people worked overtime on rest days. In order to alleviate the sharp labor-management contradictions, Chen Ju invited Lai Jinlin, who has rich experience in the labor movement, to serve as his part-time deputy director to support him.
Lai Jinlin
Lai Jinlin served as Chen Ju's deputy, and naturally became a reserve cadre cultivated in the "new trend" faction of the DPP. But Lai Jinlin prefers the business world to politics. He has served as the honorary president of the Taiwan Business International Development Association and the deputy general manager of Shuofeng Digital Technology Company. In 2016, while working at Shuofeng Digital Technology Company, he was also investigated by Taiwanese authorities for suspected insider stock trading. But with Tsai Ing-wen's successful ascension to power in 2016, these old DPP generals have been employed, and Lai Jinlin has been appointed to important positions by Tsai Ing-wen. In September 2016, he successfully served as chairman of Taiwan Shenbrain International, a subsidiary controlled by Taiwanese public company Chunghwa Telecom, and Lai Jinlin's salary exceeded NT$2 million a year. He is also considered one of the beneficiaries of Tsai Ing-wen's remuneration politics, and he also founded the Clouded Leopard Energy Technology Company. This company is responsible for contracting solar panels in Taiwan's legislature. In 2021, it was discovered that the solar panels produced by Yun Leopard Energy Technology Company used the inverter of well-known mainland technology companies.
Lai Jinlin and Clouded Leopard Energy
In recent years, the Lai family has been working hard in the business world for a long time, which also involves the conspiracy and planning of the DPP's layout in both the political and business circles. Lai Jinlin's wife is Wu Ruping, a well-known media personality on the island of Taiwan, and his eldest daughter, Lai Pinyu, has also taken over her father's political mantle in recent years. Lai Pinyu was born in 1992 in Yunlin County and is a youth representative of Taiwan independence within the Democratic Progressive Party. In 2020, she was successfully elected as a public opinion representative of Taiwan's legislature, the youngest elected representative of this legislature. Lai Pinyu began to get involved in political and social movements when she was in high school, created contradictions in cross-strait relations for a long time, and acted as a pioneer of "Taiwan independence." In 2013, the two sides of the strait are about to sign an agreement in the field of trade in services, and Chen Deming, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, made a special trip to Taiwan. Lai Pinyu, Huang Yanru, Lai Yudi, and others led more than 20 students to the gate of the Taiwan Province Strait Exchange Foundation to protest. In June 2014, Zhang Zhijun arrived in Taiwan Province for a visit, and Lai Pinyu and others repeated their old skills and intensified them.
Lai Pinyu
Lai Pinyu and others inquired about Zhang Zhijun's itinerary plan for this trip in advance, and they pulled iron chains and ropes on the necessary road to block the road in advance, and also wrapped iron chains around their waists to obstruct Zhang Zhijun's convoy. However, their plan was again destroyed by the Taiwanese escort convoy, and the police who arrived at the scene broke the chains, carried Lai Pinyu and others away and arrested them within ten minutes. In January 2015, a local court in Taiwan found them suspected of "obstructing the safety of public exchanges," and prosecutors prosecuted them. However, Taiwan's courts are also an appendage to the island's politics, moving with the political wind. Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party won a big victory in 2016, and the Taiwan District Court acquitted Lai and others on February 9, 2017. Lai Pinyu also successfully attracted the public's attention with this incident, and she also became an assistant to Lin Changzuo, the legislative representative of the Taiwan independence group "Power of the Times", and has since entered the political arena.
Lin Changzuo
In 2019, Lai Pinyu accepted an invitation from the DPP to join the DPP and run for public opinion in Taiwan's legislature. Her opponent was Li Yongping, a veteran Kuomintang general, who narrowly defeated Li Yongping by 2,000 votes, becoming the youngest representative of the legislature. After her election, Lai entered the Education and Culture Committee of the legislature and served as its convener on March 7, 2022. She also became the spokesperson of the campaign headquarters of New Taipei mayoral candidate Lin Jialong in 2022, and she was in the limelight for a while. On the surface, Lai Pinyu's election is to inherit the political mantle of her father Lai Jinlin, but in fact it is also an important step in the DPP's collusion between officials and businessmen. The father and daughter used their political and business connections to start fighting for the interests of the DPP in various fields.
The DPP's layout in the cultural and sports circles
In recent years, the DPP has been promoting the strategy of "de-Chineseization" and "cultural Taiwan independence", and it wants to attract the attention of young people on the island. So they use anime, the Internet and all kinds of things that young people like to please young people, such as Lai Pinyu who appeared in public with "cosplay" makeup many times during the campaign. One of the important proposals she promoted in the legislature was to fight for the interests of the island's famous paper windmill troupe, which is also an important tool for the DPP to promote "de-Chineseization" and "cultural Taiwan independence". Founded in 1992, Paper Pinwheel Theatre is a performance group that mainly performs children's plays. But in recent years, it has become closer to the DPP, and has been responsible for dances and plays at important DPP celebrations on many occasions. In 2020, the paper windmill troupe's warehouse in New Taipei City burned down due to fire. Lai Pinyu, as a representative of public opinion, personally fought for the warehouse land for the Paper Windmill Troupe, and eventually she even said that Taiwan's defense department leased the old Third Ammunition Depot Camp in Xizhi District, New Taipei City, to the Paper Pinwheel Troupe, which shows the energy of this troupe.
Paper Pinwheel Theatre
Since Tsai Ing-wen came to power, the Paper Pinwheel Theatre has also received a large number of government bids, according to statistics, it has received 114 government bids in just five years, totaling more than NT$280 million. The Paper Pinwheel Theatre Company was able to obtain such a large budget, and to say that it has nothing to do with the Tsai Ing-wen administration may not be convincing. Wu Nianzhen, Ke Yizheng, and others, the main creators of the Paper Windmill Troupe, are all supporters of "Taiwan independence" with a clear-cut stand, and the political color of this troupe is self-evident. In November 2022, Taipei Mayor Chen Shizhong, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, was photographed clasping fingers with a married woman at the door of a high-end hotel, with an ambiguous attitude. The dinner that evening was convened by the Paper Pinwheel Troupe, and the current director of the Paper Pinwheel Troupe, Ren Jiancheng and Executive Director Zhang Yimin, were both on the scene. This fully shows that the relationship between the Paper Windmill Troupe and the DPP is by no means general, and should already be one of the important propaganda mouthpieces within the DPP. The DPP's black hand has long been extended to the cultural and sports circles on the island of Taiwan, and its purpose is naturally to use these fields as a medium to peddle the thesis of "cultural Taiwan independence."
Chen Shizhong accepted the banquet of the Paper Windmill Troupe
Recently, American basketball star Howard signed with the Taoyuan Yongfeng Cloud Leopards of the Taiwan Professional Basketball League T1 League, and the owner behind the scenes is Lai Jinlin and Lai Pinyu's family's Cloud Leopard Energy Technology Company. According to Taiwanese media reports, Howard's monthly salary exceeded $200,000. According to the regulations, the salary limit of foreign aid in the Taiwan regional league is $20,000, which is the green light specially given to Howard by the official. Combined with the political and economic power of the Lai family, this green light is not unexpected. And this Yongfeng clouded leopard team is said to be a newly formed team, and the facilities and equipment are not complete. Howard's arrival also surprised many people and felt incredible. But if you link his joining with the island's politics, it seems to be able to explain it. Howard is the biggest foreign aid in the history of basketball on the island, and his addition has made the media's attention focus on the island, which is the so-called "let the world see Taiwan" that the Democratic Progressive Party has long been hyped about. And with the DPP's public opinion representatives and political families behind the team, Howard may be able to get much more than the contract figures.
American star Howard
Howard's arrival can also bring real propaganda value to the DPP, which they can use to attract young votes, while exaggerating the merits of the DPP's sports authorities. Basketball also has a large number of fans on the island of Taiwan, and this year coincides with the election of county mayors and county and city councilors in Taiwan. The news of Howard's signing broke ten days before the election began, which can also play a certain bonus role in the election. Now that the DPP is facing desperate tensions, it is valuable to be able to win them one more vote. Sure enough, after Howard's plane landed at Taoyuan Airport, a large number of fans were present to greet him, and the media also dug out that the behind-the-scenes boss of the Taoyuan Yongfeng Cloud Leopards was Lai Jinlin. Coupled with Lai Jinlin and Lai Pinyu's vertical and horizontal circles in the business, cultural and sports circles, and political circles in recent years, it is very likely that there are also election considerations and calculations of the Democratic Progressive Party behind this drama of American basketball stars joining the Taiwan Basketball League. But now that there are only 13 days left before the election, if the DPP wants to play any more tricks, I am afraid it will inevitably lose miserably.