“One country, two systems,” “no change for 50 years,” the British-Chinese joint statement of 1984 — the public pledges made by Beijing as Hong Kong was being returned to Chinese rule seem to be falling apart.
Over the past two months, five men connected with Hong Kong publisher Mighty Wind and its bookstore, Causeway Bay Books — which made a reputation for selling “sensitive” books — have disappeared from Hong Kong and Thailand, and it is believed that China has abducted them.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) aspirations of a strong China, military expansion abroad and clamping down on human rights at home apparently includes Hong Kong. It seems the “Pearl of the Orient” has lost its luster.
Although Hong Kongers get angry, speak up and show their dissatisfaction through protests like the “Umbrella movement,” the Beijing-supported Hong Kong government continues to do as it pleases. The elections for chief executive of Hong’s Kong Executive Council were blocked by politicians and businesspeople who have never paid any attention to public opinion, treating the basic law as if it did not exist.
This is the truth behind the “one country, two systems” policy: A small group of political and business elite, euphemistically described as Hong Kongers, ruling the territory, suppressing the public’s democratic demands. It was only a matter of time before something like the Causeway Bay bookstore disappearances happened.
The “one country, two systems” policy has lost all credibility, but Xi continues to treat it as an astonishing framework that he continues to try to push on Taiwan, saying that “peaceful unification and ‘one country, two systems’ are the fundamental direction for how to solve the Taiwan issue.”
There is also a small group of people with cross-strait political and business interests in Taiwan who are helping with Xi’s political and economic attack on the nation.
Foremost among them is Taiwan’s commander-in-chief, who is wracking his brains to find ways to mislead the international community and trick it into believing that a majority of Taiwanese accept the “one China” view. The meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Xi was aimed at letting Xi inspect Ma and nod his approval, but the problem is that Ma is such a bad actor that everyone saw through China’s attempt at deceit.
During the final years of British rule, the last governor of Hong Kong, Christopher Patten, attempted to initiate democratic reform to let Hong Kongers rule the territory.
However, Beijing, which had its mind set on controlling Hong Kong, began nurturing pro-China political and economic groups after the 1997 handover. The groups later became China’s tools for using local residents to control the territory as they focused on ruling Hong Kong on Beijing’s behalf.
The strategy was effective: By offering the groups petty benefits, Beijing managed to suppress the calls for democracy. Having succeeded once, Xi wants to push the “once country, two systems” policy on Taiwan, but he knows that Taiwanese are not easily deceived. The political and economic interest groups that he has planted in Taiwan have still not been able to penetrate the nation.
Either by drawing on the events in Hong Kong or having learned from Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) arrival in Taiwan, certain Taiwanese politicians and businesspeople are jockeying for position in the cross-strait political and business interest groups.
Ever since the meeting between former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2005, people who have only ever worked for their personal interests have continued to join the interest groups, while past KMT leaders made sure that they led them.
The meeting between Ma and Xi on Nov. 7 was nothing more than Ma’s bid to continue leading the interest groups after he steps down in May.
Ahead of Saturday’s presidential election, the KMT has been shouting empty slogans about unity, but its voice is weak, because everyone in the party is following their own plans as they try to find ways to grab control over the party apparatus to become the leader of the interest groups. To them, it does not matter whether the KMT is relegated to the opposition, as the business opportunities offered by China are endless.
There are public complaints over Ma’s failure to govern the nation, and both the pan-blue and the pan-green camps are angry. In addition, the KMT’s younger members are not ready to take over control of the party once the current forces are spent and yet they refuse to identify with mainstream Taiwanese society. As the KMT’s presidential candidate is likely to face defeat and the party is likely to lose seats in the legislature, it would not be wrong to say that the party would shrink to a small political force.
The KMT is reaping the results of its opposition to reform, to public opinion and to Taiwan, and it has no one to blame but itself. The next government and the next legislature must follow through on public calls for transitional justice and must provide the assistance required to change the KMT, making sure that the party develops into a democratic party that identifies with Taiwan and becomes a positive force in the political environment.
At the same time, the next government must not tolerate a small number of people continuing to act on behalf of Beijing to grow the interest groups into entities that ignore the rule of law.
In the past seven years, the interest groups have caused harm to democracy, freedom, human rights and the right to housing. The next government and the next legislature must create a legal consensus to support Taiwanese identity and protect the nation. It must eliminate the “one China” way of thinking and the mindset that sees the Taiwanese and Chinese armies as a single Chinese army.
If the cross-strait vested interests continue to grow and if China uses its vast capital resources to buy shares in Taiwanese companies, those who seek nothing but their own profit would destroy the nation and its democracy would be weakened. Beijing has used vested political and business interests in Hong Kong to control the territory, and it will try to do the same thing in Taiwan.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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