On April 26, the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress ruled that Hong Kong will not have direct elections for its leader in 2007, nor for all legislators in 2008.
Despite the fact that more than 10,000 Hong Kong people took to the streets to demand democracy on April 11, the ruling shattered hopes for greater autonomy with 156 approval votes, 1 abstention vote and none in opposition. A standing committee formulated on a non-democratic mechanism has denied the people of Hong Kong's most basic democratic right so Beijing can continue to control the political situation in Hong Kong.
Less than seven years after the handover, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiao-ping's (鄧小平) reassurance that people in Hong Kong could still go dancing and to the horse races rings hollow. The "one country, two systems" concept was put forth by Deng during his meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in September, 1982. Three months later when China revised its Constitution, the term "one country, two systems" was incorporated into Article 31 under the heading of General Principles, making it a legally binding national policy.
Surely, "one country, two systems" refers to China as one country, and the socialism in China and the capitalism in Hong Kong and Taiwan as the two systems. In light of this concept, China is a nation, while Hong Kong and Taiwan are categorized as "special administrative regions." Defined as China's local governments, Hong Kong and Taiwan are not allowed national sovereignty, or to exercise their national diplomatic and defense rights, or to declare war or sign peace treaties. From this perspective, it is hardly surprising that the Standing Committee would give a unilateral interpretation of Hong Kong's Basic Law.
Beijing has made it clear that Hong Kong's capitalist democracy is circumscribed by a cage of Chinese socialism. Hong Kong's people can go dancing, see horse racing and earn money -- as long as they do not go to the voting booth.
Having experienced three direct presidential elections, Taiwanese can hardly accept such a formula banning direct elections. It is difficult to envision how people can supervise the government if they cannot pick their own representatives. How can the most basic political rights be protected without such elections?
If we view Taiwan through the lens of the Hong Kong experience, we will no longer laugh at the martial arts star Jackie Chan (成龍), who jeered at Taiwan's presidential election as "a big joke."
Since the lifting of martial law, Taiwan has experienced many democratic reforms, such as a thorough legislative re-election and direct presidential elections. After years of efforts by democratic activists, now people's rights are protected, including the unrestricted right to express their minds freely.
Despite the commotion in the legislature, the raucous media, frequent social and political movements and obstacles to deepening a culture of democracy, people in Taiwan enjoy the rights to choose legislators and national leaders, to criticize the heads of the state at will, and to talk freely on political issues to their hearts' content. If such a lifestyle can be called "a big joke," then what should one call the Chinese rebuttal of Hong Kong's autonomy?
Chan has since said that he made that remark with a heavy heart. But in the face of Hong Kong's hampered democracy, Chan's silence pains the hearts of Taiwanese people. Hong Kong's aborted democracy is not a joke, but the same woe that a colonized Taiwan once suffered.
Xiang Yang is an associate professor of indigenous languages at National Dong Hwa University.
Translated by Wang Hsiao-wen
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS