Chinese dissident Wuer Kaixi is a man who is as good as his word.
On Monday last week, he flew to the Hong Kong International Airport to turn himself in to the authorities, hoping that the Hong Kong government could deliver him to Chinese authorities to end his 24-year exile.
By doing so, he could be punished for the crimes of “conspiracy to overthrow the government” and “agitating anti-revolution” during the 1989 democracy movement. As expected, Hong Kong sent him back to Taiwan on the same plane.
Wuer Kaixi, who married a Taiwanese woman and took up residence here, has repeatedly said that he intends to return to China to give himself up to the police.
In October, I invited him to give a speech, entitled “Gazing at Freedom” (凝視自由), at National Chung Hsing University where I teach.
In his speech, he talked about how his generation, which was longing for liberalism, reacted to the unprecedented changes that were taking place in China at the time, the carrot-and-stick approach of the Chinese Communist Party, the enthusiastic support from Beijing residents, the ruthless military crackdown and massacre and his years in exile.
When asked about his plans, he said without hesitation that he would try to return to China to turn himself in — on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre next year or perhaps even earlier.
Hong Kong offered support and assistance to the student protesters during the 1989 democracy movement, and some Hong Kongers launched “Operation Yellowbird” (黃雀行動) following the massacre to secretly help Chinese dissidents flee China.
Furthermore, every year on June 4 Hong Kongers organize memorial events at Victoria Park to mark the 1989 massacre.
However, the territory, or rather its government, is becoming increasingly conservative.
When the Hong Kong government sent Wuer Kaixi back to Taiwan, I was reminded of my own experiences in the territory.
Invited by the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute, I boarded the Peace Boat with my Taiwanese passport and departed from Yokohama in Japan for Hong Kong.
When the more than 700 passengers arrived, I was the only one who was detained by the customs officials.
My foreign friends then realized that Taiwanese need a Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents (台胞證) to enter Hong Kong and they kept asking me if I had another passport.
Since customs officers could not issue visas at the port, they delivered me to the airport and sent me back to Taiwan.
I could only laugh to myself and say that I would lose one day of shopping, but I was unable to answer my curious friends’ question about why the Hong Kong government did not treat travelers with Taiwanese passports fairly.
Wuer Kaixi is a pacifist, and he does not recognize the violent means adopted by the pro-Xinjiang independence forces.
As a student at Beijing Normal University, he stepped up to the student speaker podium at a significant moment in time and somehow became the leader of the student movement.
Now he wants to return to China to turn himself in to the authorities.
What reason can Beijing give for keeping this middle-aged Uighur from going home after 24 years in exile?
Chen Chien-fu is the coordinator of Monitoring Internet Video on Demand for Citizen’s Congress Watch.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is expected to be summoned by the Taipei City Police Department after a rally in Taipei on Saturday last week resulted in injuries to eight police officers. The Ministry of the Interior on Sunday said that police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by an estimated 1,000 “disorderly” demonstrators. The rally — led by Huang to mark one year since a raid by Taipei prosecutors on then-TPP chairman and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — might have contravened the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), as the organizers had
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) last week made a rare visit to the Philippines, which not only deepened bilateral economic ties, but also signaled a diplomatic breakthrough in the face of growing tensions with China. Lin’s trip marks the second-known visit by a Taiwanese foreign minister since Manila and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1975; then-minister Chang Hsiao-yen (章孝嚴) took a “vacation” in the Philippines in 1997. As Taiwan is one of the Philippines’ top 10 economic partners, Lin visited Manila and other cities to promote the Taiwan-Philippines Economic Corridor, with an eye to connecting it with the Luzon
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
RSS