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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Expatriate Artist Socks It to Taiwan’s President

MANHATTAN (CN) - An expatriate Chinese artist sued the president of Taiwan, claiming his country caved to pressure from mainland China, "a thugocratic regime of Satanic totalitarianism," by backing out of a plan to sculpt a 32-meter high Statue of Democracy on an island facing the mainland.

Weinming Chen sued Taiwan President Ying-jeou Ma, and Taiwan's Chief of the Bureau of Civil Affairs Hsi-lung Lee in Federal Court.

Chen claims he entered a contract with Taiwan on Jan. 17 this year to build a sculpture inspired by New York's Statue of Liberty and China's former Goddess of Democracy, which the "infamous Beijing Butchers" demolished the day of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

"The sculpture was projected to be erected on the sea shore of Kinmen Island facing Mainland China with approximately 5 nautical miles in geographic distance, according to the contract signed on January 17, 2012 with the government of Kinmen County, as an integral part of the government of the Republic of China in Taipei, Taiwan, under the presidency of defendant Ying-jeou Ma, the head of the China Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang," the complaint states.

Chen says he also entered a contract with defendant Hsi-lung Lee. But he claims that an unspecified number of Doe and Roe defendants pressured the officials to break the contract.

"Unnamed defendants as John Does and Mary Roes are presumably the relators to this instant case who have apparently exerted huge undue influence upon the named defendants in causing the latter's breach of contract, and the latter's maliciously [sic] interference of the contractual relation between plaintiff and the defendants in Taiwan," the complaint states.

It continues: "Such John Does and Mary Roes may have been referred to as the members of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party which is located at 34 Fuyou Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, and yet to be likely named and impleaded later based upon further discovery of evidence of connections for an on-going civil conspiracy in apparently tortuous and malicious interference of business contract for the purpose to politicize, sabotage and derail any projects being designed and promoted for the noble cause of freedom."

Chen claims that the unidentified agents "may have used duress, seduction, and all other illegal, immoral and totally corruptive undue influences and distortions" to achieve their ends, and the named defendants bowed to that pressure.

"Unfortunately, the principal defendants' lawless, unethical behavior of betrayal in totally breaching and forfeiting the valid and enforceable contracts and its malicious interference of such an enforceable contract for common goods has demonstrated not only committed civil wrongs against the injured victim, the plaintiff, but had demonstrated a free fall starting from the bottom line of human decency acceptable by any civilized world of free mankind under the growing pressure, penetrations and threats from a thugocratic regime of Satanic totalitarianism on the other side of the Taiwan Straits," the complaint states.

Chen seeks $22 million in punitive damages for breach of contract, breach of implied contract, intentional and malicious interference of business relations and civil conspiracy.

He also demands that the defendants allow him to erect the statue in Kinmen.

He is represented by Ning Ye, of Queens.

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