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
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS