The High Prosecutor's Office today (6th) indicted non-party legislator Gao Jin Sumei, accusing her of receiving funds from the CCP and cooperating with related actions, and requested 14 years in prison. After taking stock of Gao Jin Sumei's political career in the past 20 years, from going to Japan to protest against the Yasukuni Shrine, visiting China to meet with Hu Jintao after Typhoon Morakot, and receiving a donation of about NT$100 million from China, to attending the CCP's 1993 military parade, boycotting arms purchases, and talking about "our Xi Jinping" and "rejecting the U.S. market" during questioning, there have been constant controversies.
Looking back on his anti-Japanese actions, Gao Jin Sumei led the survivors of the Takasago Volunteer Corps to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in June 2005 to protest against the commemoration of Taiwanese aboriginal war dead and demand the return of their ancestors. In September, he went to the United Nations Headquarters in New York to protest against Japanese colonial atrocities and militarism. In November, he questioned the then representative in Japan, Hsu Shi-kai, in the Legislative Yuan and threatened to "delete all budgets of the representative office in Japan." In August 2011, she went to Japan again to demand the return of her ancestral souls, but was transferred by the Tokyo police for investigation on charges of injury, using force to interfere with business, etc. The Japanese media interpreted her as "cross-strait joint efforts to resist Japan."
In terms of cross-strait interactions, Gao Jin Sumei led a delegation to Beijing in August 2008 to perform "We Are All One Family" before the opening of the Olympic Games; in 2009, she led a delegation to visit China to meet with Hu Jintao after Typhoon Morakot, and China announced a donation of 20 million yuan to Taiwan's aboriginal families affected by the disaster. Since 2010, she has repeatedly brought together Jingtai Development Company, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned enterprise Beijing Enterprises Group, to come to Taiwan to promote hometown cooperation and donate medium-sized buses. During Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong’s visit to Taiwan in 2012, a group of hometown cars were donated, raising questions about the penetration of Chinese state-owned enterprises into Taiwan’s local grassroots.
In 2015, the Ma Ying-jeou government promoted fine-tuning of high school curriculum, triggering student protests. Aboriginal groups criticized the new curriculum for strengthening the Han-centered and Greater China view of history. Gao Jin Sumei not only supported the fine-tuning in the Legislative Yuan, but also wrote an article emphasizing the history of Japanese colonial Qingxiang to fight back against the anti-curriculum movement. On September 3 of the same year, she went to Beijing to attend the commemoration and military parade of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, which triggered criticism from many indigenous groups, questioning her participation as an indigenous legislator and emphasizing that her position only represented an individual.
In 2017, the Chinese talent show "China's New Sing" used the National Taiwan University track and field, triggering student protests and incidents of beatings by members of the United Promotion Party. Gao Jin Sumei initially denied pressure, but the National Taiwan University investigation report pointed out that the school only agreed to lend the venue because her congressional office expressed "concerns" and held a coordination meeting. In June 2019, she led a delegation to Beijing as the honorary advisor of the Cross-Strait Peace and Development Forum and attended a symposium attended by Liu Jieyi, then director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council. She proposed five initiatives covering the 1992 Consensus, national unity, cross-strait integrated development, Chinese traditional culture and grassroots exchanges, and was received by Wang Yang, then chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Regarding the controversy over arms purchase and discussion, in 2006, Gao Jin Sumei led anti-arms purchase activists to protest at the Legislative Yuan Procedure Committee. On that day, the arms purchase case failed to pass for the 62nd time due to the joint opposition of Kuomintang supporters. In 2023, she, Chen Yuzhen and 13 other legislators proposed a proposal to stop the purchase of volcanic mine systems from the United States and prohibit the preparation of budgets. In September 2025, she proposed returning the central government's general budget for 2025 and the fifth special budget of the Forward-Looking Plan to the procedural committee on the grounds that there were insufficient funds to compensate for the ban on logging for indigenous peoples. The proposal was approved by a vote with the support of Blue and White legislators.
In recent years, political issues have also sparked debate. In March 2023, Gao Jinsumei questioned Chen Jianren, the then executive president, but was stopped by Chen from spreading "suspicious theories about beauty." The briefing was even found to have directly copied the simplified Chinese content of China Orient Securities. In June 2024, when she questioned Chief Executive Officer Toh Wing-tai, she criticized the Democratic Progressive Party for claiming that the legislative amendments to the powers of Congress were under Xi Jinping's instructions, and blurted out "we are Xi Jinping." In August 2025, she advocated that Taiwan should "reject the U.S. market and give up trade with the United States." She was questioned from a "suspicious theory of the United States" to a "theory of abandoning the United States."
