Even before Hong Kong passed a National Security Law on June 30, 2020, stifling the pro-democracy movement and the anti-extradition protests that had rocked the territory for a year, commentators were repeating the mantra “Hong Kong today, is Taiwan next?”
It was a pertinent question, not least because of how Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Jan. 2, 2019, linked the so-called “1992 consensus” to “one China” and the implementation of “one country, two systems” in Taiwan.
However, there are too many differences between Hong Kong’s situation — history, status, a shared border with China, a government doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — and Taiwan’s long-term, albeit ambiguous, security assurances from the US that made the comparison relevant, but ultimately unconvincing.
There was an outpouring of sympathy for Hong Kongers from Taiwanese, but people living in this country have lived under the threat of Chinese invasion for so long, it is difficult to maintain an appropriate level of alarm.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine feels different. Putting aside for now whether the West should have seen this coming, the point is that politicians in the US, the UK, Europe and across the world were caught off-guard, and recognize that the world is likely moving into a new, less predictable era.
Again, the question is being asked, is Taiwan next? What is Xi thinking as he watches events unfold?
However, there are still so many variables involved, and nobody knows what is going to happen. Hong Kong is not Taiwan, Xi is not Russian President Vladimir Putin, Taiwan is not Ukraine and Taiwanese are not Ukrainians.
On Saturday last week, during a virtual forum, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama said that Taiwan’s future and independence were in danger because Taiwanese are less likely to defend themselves than Ukrainians are. When questioned about this, he said it was just his perception and that he would like to be wrong.
It is impossible to predict how people are going to react in extreme situations.
Taiwanese are not passive observers. It is true that the younger generation have had their democratic freedoms handed to them and that they have never been asked to fight. However, it is also true that members of this generation, like the generation before it, have proven themselves to be politically active, fighting for justice in the mode appropriate for the situation.
Hundreds marched through Taipei on Monday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the 228 Incident, and events were held across the nation to mark the anniversary.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) speech at the official opening of the Ching-kuo Chi-hai Cultural Park and Chiang Ching-kuo Presidential Library on Jan. 22, in which she praised former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) anti-communist stance, was met with anger not just by Taiwanese who had lived through martial law and the White Terror era, but by members of the younger generation, too.
These are expressions of a nation that has yet to process the trauma of violence and decades of suppression prior to democratization in 1987: Marches to commemorate the 228 Incident had been banned until this point.
It is not just about processing a shared national trauma; it is about looking for a brighter future. The organizers of the Taipei march made three requests to the government, one of which was to build a new Taiwanese nation as it fights Chinese imperialism.
Taiwanese are engaged. They know what is happening, and they know what is at stake. They know that an invasion by the CCP would expose them to more decades of suppression and brainwashing, having just emerged from the same treatment under the post-war Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime.
Who knows what they will do when they have a gun placed in their hands?
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