Before June last year, no one expected Hong Kong to end up where it is today. All Hong Kongers wanted was to maintain the rule of law and the territory’s autonomy in accordance with the promise that everything would remain unchanged for 50 years after the 1997 handover from the UK to China.
Up to 2 million people took to the streets to protest a bill that would allow the extradition of people suspected of crimes from Hong Kong to China, demanding that local people be judged based on local law.
Lawyers, medical staff, accountants and public servants took turns demonstrating, and they were joined by university and secondary-school students. Unexpectedly, the Hong Kong government in its response resorted to illegal means and violent suppression, which caused things to deteriorate fast.
In July, mainland China intervened, implemented the Hong Kong National Security Law and took control of Hong Kong. Anyone the government sees as causing problems was promptly arrested and detained, frightening everyone as the “red terror” descended on Hong Kong.
Some intellectuals and young people have since left, while others remain in the territory, and all are in for difficult times.
It is astonishing that the situation has deteriorated so fast, but it does not necessarily mean that Hong Kongers are beyond help. The butterfly effect triggered by these events is rippling around the world, and communist China is starting to pay the price for wrecking Hong Kong. The final outcome is undecided, but Hong Kong’s youth have not bled for nothing.
Hong Kong is a free, globalized territory, and the brutal treatment of Hong Kongers has exposed communist China’s bloody ways to the world.
Young Taiwanese have seen young Hong Kongers viciously attacked by police.
The Hong Kong Police Force might have a long, outstanding tradition, but it now brutally attacks 12-year-old girls shopping for stationery. These gangster methods fill people with contempt, and young Taiwanese are frightened by the situation young Hong Kongers find themselves in. If this is unification, then unification with China is an impossibility to Taiwan’s young.
Wishful Japanese believed in mutually beneficial coexistence with China, but the brutal treatment of Hong Kongers and the arrest of Hong Kong democracy advocate Agnes Chow (周庭), who is very popular in Japan, have exposed the true face of communist China, and Japanese have realized that without a strong defense, they could one day be treated the same way.
What about the US? Based on the values of liberty and democracy, the US cannot remain on the sidelines. It has canceled Hong Kong’s special trade status, imposed sanctions on Hong Kong officials, and further economic sanctions can be expected.
In Europe, where Germany holds the rotating EU Council presidency, German Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas earlier this month told Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) to his face that China should rescind the National Security Law and implement universal suffrage for Hong Kong Legislative Council elections.
The biggest bone of contention between China and the world over Hong Kong is the implementation of international treaties and post-World War II self-determination: China completely ignores the Sino-British Joint Declaration, walks roughshod over post-World War II self-determination and intervenes everywhere it can.
Such imperialist-communist aggression lies hidden behind the Hong Kong issue, and the civilized world must address it.
Hong Kong arouses sympathy, but there is no call for despair. The civilized world will not abandon Hong Kong.
Mike Chang is an accountant.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
A single photograph can cut through a lot of noise, but it can also be used to misrepresent the truth. At the very least, it can concentrate the mind on something that requires further investigation. On Monday last week, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) and former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) held a news conference in which they showed a photograph of former foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), now Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy chairman. In the image Hsiao is seated next to Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association chairman Han Ying-huan (韓螢煥). The two men were holding
I first met Professor Ray Jiing (井迎瑞) as a film and documentary student at Shih Hsin University’s (SHU) Department of Radio Television and Film in 1988. The following year, he went on to become the director of the Chinese Taipei Film Archive — forerunner of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI). Over his eight-year tenure, Jiing rescued and restored over 200 classic Taiwanese films. In 1997, he established the Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary and Film Archiving at Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA), and I joined the program in his third cohort of students. Beyond a
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
RSS