July 1 will be the seventh anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to Chinese rule. Hong Kong has been going downhill since the handover. The economic slump has recently been compounded by the SARS epidemic imported from Guangdong Province.
What's more, the territory's freedoms and the rule of law are in danger. The recent dispute over anti-subversion legislation has prompted protests from Hong Kong democrats and caused anxiety among Chinese democracy advocates. Even the US has openly expressed concern over the matter.
Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law stipulates: "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies."
This article is aimed at taking Hong Kong from "one country, two systems" to "one country, one system."
During the post-handover honeymoon, horse races went on as usual, people danced as usual and the annual demonstrations commemorating the June 4 Tiananmen massacre went on as usual. The Falun Gong movement also remained active in Hong Kong, even though it was banned in China.
But Hong Kong's relative freedom and the "two systems" environment quickly became an annoyance to Beijing. China has been thinking about how to bring Hong Kong into one system. The Hong Kong government's national security bill, if enacted, will severely curb the rights of its people. Once the bill is passed, "one country, two systems" will cease to exist entirely.
The rule of law has been crumbling in Hong Kong since the handover. The political system is already undemocratic. Once the national security bill is passed, it will seriously affect freedom in a vast number of areas -- thought, religion, press, speech, cultural creativity, information, academic research and assembly. The law will fundamentally change Hong Kong society. Any legislation aimed at fulfilling the mandate of Article 23 will introduce authoritarian China's ideology into Hong Kong's legal system and seriously weaken the freedoms and rights the people of Hong Kong have long enjoyed. It will also undermine the legal basis for "one country, two systems" and damage Hong Kong's international image.
"One country, two systems" was a sales pitch aimed at Taiwan -- to make unification with China appear more attractive. Since Hong Kong's handover, however, Taiwanese are simply not interested in becoming a "special administrative region" ruled by a government hand-picked and controlled by Beijing. Because "one country, two systems" has failed to win over Taiwanese, the proposal has lost its purpose and China's government has no reason to continue to extend freedoms and rights to Hong Kong's people.
Some people here believe Taiwan should consider accepting the "one China" principle. In light of how Beijing has treated Hong Kong, once Taiwan accepts being a part of China, Beijing will no longer need to hold up Hong Kong as a showcase. Hong Kong's importance will fall and Taiwanese will also become second-class citizens under "one country, one system."
Some politicians in Taiwan are promoting a "one China" consensus and fantasizing about participating in international organizations under a "one China roof." As a result, PFP Legislator Kao Ming-chien (高明見) became a tool of Beijing for denigrating Taiwan's status at the SARS conference in Kuala Lumpur. In light of Hong Kong's past glory and its dismal future, "one country, two systems" is a losing proposition.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
RSS