Taiwan rejects China’s HK tactics

It is no surprise that, as The Wall Street Journal reported, Beijing’s closest political ally in Taiwan “is fighting to remain relevant in an island democracy where voters increasingly see a future that is detached from an authoritarian China”. That was never likely to be otherwise when, in the aftermath of last month’s election in Taiwan, the CCP embarked on a process of doubling down on its ruthless “security law” oppression of Hong Kong.

According to an announcement by Beijing’s top official in Hong Kong, John Lee, even “acts committed outside Hong Kong by those who are not citizens of the territory” will be targeted by new laws to be enacted by Hong Kong’s supine, hand-picked (by Beijing) legislature. The new laws will amplify and augment the already draconian terms of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020, which was aimed at snuffing out “subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces”, with sentences of life imprisonment for anyone flouting Beijing’s iron-fisted diktat.

Specifically, according to The Times, the new laws will “increase the government’s power to go after those who work with foreign organisations or forces to influence legislation or ‘publish misleading statements’ ”, a warning, surely, to anyone, including Hong Kong emigres wherever they are, including Australia, even writing about Hong Kong. They will also criminalise those who encourage public servants or the police to neglect their duty or national allegiance.

With that authoritarian framework of menacing additional measures being legislated and imposed on Hong Kong’s people, in contravention of every pledge and promise made to them by Beijing at the time of the 1997 handover, it is inevitable that savvy Taiwanese voters, acutely aware their island state could be similarly oppressed, have reacted in the way they have, with Beijing’s closest partner in Taiwan fighting to remain relevant.

That is the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which once governed China and had dominated Taiwanese politics for decades. As last month’s result showed, it is now on its longest losing streak in presidential elections since the self-ruled island state started choosing its leader by popular vote in 1996. The Kuomintang’s travails show China’s repression and disregard for human rights and democracy are no more popular in Taiwan than in Hong Kong, where they are clearly detested.