Category Archives: Hong Kong and Taiwan

Taiwan Backs Democracy Movement in Hong Kong

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12 Sept 2014 | Voice of America

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Wu Mei-hung urged the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing to use tolerance.

She said that with respect to the Hong Kong people’s desire for universal suffrage, her office and every segment of Taiwan expresses a high level of concern and support. Wu said her office hopes the Hong Kong government and leaders in mainland China can use wisdom, tolerance of different opinions and rational dialogue and other peaceful means to reach a consensus.

Lai I-chung, vice president of Taiwan Think Tank, said Hong Kong has lost its appeal for Taiwanese since Communist China took it back from Britain.

“I think they’re now looking at Hong Kong as a place that’s a Chinese territory. Since Taiwan democratized and Hong Kong is reverting back to China, Hong Kong is no longer presented as a new place for hope or place for modernity, not a place Taiwan would like to learn from,” said I-Chung.

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Mainlandization: How Hong Kong and Taiwan are coping

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Mark O’Neill | 14 August 2014 | EJ Insight

My moment of awakening came one morning on a crowded Hong Kong subway from Tsuen Wan to Central.

There were four “strong country people” sitting together, three adults and one boy aged about five. He began to feel uncomfortable and his father quickly pulled out the plastic bag he had prepared: the boy did his business and father caught it in the bag. Then his mother produced an iPad; playing on it, the boy was immediately distracted.

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Beijing’s Catch-22

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Mark C. Eades | 25 June 2014 | U.S. News

Simply put, Beijing is caught in a Catch-22 situation that it cannot win, and that observers in the West should take great pleasure in watching it flounder about with. Hong Kong is a no-win proposition for the dictators in Beijing — allow democracy to take root in Hong Kong and risk losing control of mainland China, or crack down on democracy in Hong Kong and risk losing Taiwan.

All of which should prove deeply satisfying to anyone not committed to the notion that eternal Communist Party rule is indispensable to China’s future. Hong Kong’s democracy movement presents the vision of an infinitely better China than that the dictators in Beijing have to offer. That’s what those old buzzards are afraid of, so let’s enjoy watching them squirm.

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