At a TV debate yesterday (October 31), Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan brought up the "Paulin Tea House collective food poisoning case" more than two years ago, proudly claiming that his city government team "made it impossible for Paulin to escape", sparking public outrage. Many relatives and friends of the victims posted messages on social media, which resonated with tens of thousands of people.
The Baolin Teahouse food poisoning case that broke out in March 2024 was Taiwan's first serious food safety incident caused by "bancrelic acid", causing a total of 35 people to be poisoned and 6 people to die unfortunately. After the incident, the North City Government Health Bureau fined the business operators a total of NT$3.5 million. However, because the city government failed to successfully implement the false seizure at the first time, the businesses quickly went out of business and liquidated their assets. To date, not even a cent of the fine has been paid, and they have already been completely out of business. However, Jiang Wanan made a high-profile claim on the debate stage yesterday that thanks to the efforts of his colleagues in the city government, the prosecutors had the evidence, "so that Paulin could not escape and the victims' families could receive compensation." This immediately ignited the anger of the victims' relatives and friends.
A close friend of the deceased posted an article on Threads and denounced that the kindest classmate in the Baolin incident left like this. As the victim's best friend, after listening to the Taipei mayoral candidate debate yesterday, she felt really angry and unfair, and she must tell the truth clearly. In response to Jiang Wanan’s statement during the debate that the city government assisted the victims in obtaining compensation from Baolin, she emphasized that this was completely inconsistent with the actual situation. The fact is that Baolin had long been out of business, and his family had not received any compensation from Baolin Company at all so far; Baolin’s compulsory liability insurance had long since expired and had not been renewed, and the city government was unable to grasp this situation in advance.
The original PO emphasized that the source of the two amounts of money actually received by the family was very clear. The first amount was the "private settlement fund" from Yuanbai and Property Insurance Company, and the second amount was the "state compensation amount" issued by the Crime Victims Protection Association in accordance with the law. "One amount came from the private sector, one amount came from the state, and none of it was compensation paid by Baolin Company!"
The original PO deeply appealed to Jiang Wanan not to describe civil reconciliation and central compensation as compensation obtained from Baolin, let alone package the contributions of others as his own political achievements. The pain of losing friends should not become material that can be arbitrarily distorted in political debates. After the post was exposed, it quickly received tens of thousands of likes and reposts. A large number of netizens criticized "Yesterday's daring to mention Paulin really surprised me how someone can be so shameless", "Taipei mayor, please don't lie", "The Taipei City Government has either lost a screw or is completely bullshit", "The whole debate has been a lie and attack, but you still dare to mention Paulin. It's really sad."
