Following the mass arrests in Hong Kong on Aug. 10, Southern District Council member Tiffany Yuen (袁嘉蔚) posted a composite picture on Facebook, juxtaposing Taiwanese democracy pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) in handcuffs and being escorted by police in 1986 and the arrest of Jimmy Lai (黎智英), the owner of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily. Just more than a month after the Hong Kong National Security Law took effect on June 30, Hong Kong has been pulled back to what Taiwan was like almost 35 years ago.
Deng started his dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) magazine Freedom Era Weekly near the end of then-president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) rule, and in 1989, a year after Chiang died and was succeeded by his vice president, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Deng set himself on fire as police attempted to break into his office.
At the time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government was experiencing internal strife between its mainstream and non-mainstream factions, and Lee was not yet able to take complete control over the intelligence agencies, military and police. Deng’s self-immolation should be attributed to the suppression of the freedom of expression, but the tragedy also underscored the discord within the government after Chiang’s death.
In any case, as the Deng incident occurred, the authoritarian government was becoming a spent force, and it was followed by the party-state’s self-deconstruction and a surge in public awareness. In contrast with the mass arrests in Hong Kong, Taiwan’s democracy movement had accumulated enough energy to force a turn toward qualitative change.
Prior to this, the 1979 Formosa Incident — in which almost all prominent dangwai leaders were arrested — drew limited public support, as democratic awareness had not yet spread widely, and most people believed the government’s account of the incident.
Hong Kong, by contrast, has a long experience of street protests, and the sense of participating in a pro-democracy movement spread rapidly among Hong Kongers, who have responded to the arrests far more powerfully than Taiwanese in 1979. In short, the democracy movement in Taiwan at that time was still in its infancy, while the Hong Kong democracy movement is mature.
Bearing this difference in mind, it is not difficult to understand the comment by Academia Sinica Institute of Taiwan History associate research fellow Wu Rwei-ren (吳叡人) that “the Apple Daily incident is more serious than the Formosa Incident.”
While Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is responsible for Beijing’s suppression of Hong Kong, the root of all evil is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) one-party authoritarian system that nurtured Xi, who, in turn, has strengthened the one-party system. In the late 1970s, then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) launched his reform and opening up policies, spurring great anticipation in the West, which hoped economic development would spur political reform.
The West’s naivety was soon shattered by the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989, less than two months after Deng Nan-jung’s self-immolation. The event failed to awaken democratic nations, and economic sanctions by the West were implemented in name only, as the injection of funds that eventually helped China become the world’s factory continued. The West prioritized business interests over universal values.
The West should of course not take all the blame. The “soft authoritarianism” of Deng Xiaoping and his successors — former presidents Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) — attracted the attention of Western leaders, who overlooked the fact that the inherent nature of the one-party system remained unchanged.
Not until Xi began dreaming of a great empire, abolished presidential term limits, militarized the South China Sea, intensified the military threat toward Taiwan, broke the promise to Hong Kong, infiltrated democratic nations and supported other authoritarian regimes did US President Donald Trump’s administration change its mind and begin to confront China, a monstrous mixture of leftist politics and rightist economics.
In response, Xi enhanced controls and further centralized power domestically, while externally relying on “sharp power” to compete for hegemony with the US. In retrospect, as democratic nations hoped reform and opening up would bring China closer to the West, they stopped pressuring China to embrace universal values. That misstep has led to an unending series of negative consequences.
Taiwan, by contrast, is an example of how economic development can bring political reform. It is often cited in support of the argument that the same process could be replicated in China, which shares Han Chinese culture with Taiwan. This argument overlooks the fact that the CCP one-party dictatorship is far more vicious than the KMT’s was in terms of suppressing democracy, and that it was politically difficult for Taiwan to resist pressure from the US, its strongest ally.
During Chiang’s presidency, US pressure increased following the Formosa Incident, the Feb. 28, 1980, murders of the mother and twin daughters of democracy advocate Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), the death of Carnegie Mellon University assistant professor and democracy activist Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) and the assassination of US-based writer Henry Liu (劉宜良), who was known by his pen name Chiang Nan (江南). Chiang Ching-kuo was forced to initiate limited political reform, and he also announced that the Chiang family’s regime would end with him. Chiang could thus compete with Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and avoided marginalization by the democratic camp.
When the European revolutions broke out in 1989, causing the collapse of the communist regimes in Poland, the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, the CCP stubbornly resisted peaceful change. The West failed to take this opportunity to use a carrot-and-stick approach to promote change in China, thereby giving birth to the current digital totalitarian monster.
Xi’s ambition is greater than any of his predecessors, and using the CCP’s massive one-party dictatorship, he can easily crush any challenge to his power or internal demands for reform. In the latest issue of the CCP political theory journal Qiushi, or “Seeking Truth,” published on July 16, Xi stressed that “the leadership of the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” “the Party is the highest force for political leadership,” and it “exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country.”
Following this logic, Xi would never give in to Hong Kong’s demands for democracy, which have been hemmed in and reduced by the party-state. Using the National Security Law to conduct mass arrests, the party-state has advanced further, and Hong Kongers must now find new strategies to fight the draconian law.
The recent mass arrests centered on Lai. From a media tycoon, Lai has transitioned into a democracy activist. He has become a symbol of press freedom whose actions and participation are closely connected to the territory’s democracy movement.
Beijing’s intention is clear: Beyond clamping down on press freedom, it aims to crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp. To get a complete picture, the mass arrests should be viewed in parallel with the disqualification of 12 potential pro-democracy candidates in the Legislative Council elections and the decision to postpone the elections by a year.
Perhaps democratic countries and international media outlets have reacted so strongly because, in addition to the suspicion that Hong Kong media have been co-opted by the CCP, they have understood that the blatant mass arrests are directly related to the future of democracy in Hong Kong.
One after another, democratic nations have stated their position and taken action. The future of democracy in Hong Kong now depends on Hong Kongers’ will to be their own masters and their ability to take a more creative approach to protests.
Amid the changing international situation, China is facing domestic crises and international troubles. The question now is whether the CCP’s one-party rule will perish before democracy is introduced in Hong Kong.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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