The people of Taiwan have been largely sympathetic to the protest movement in Hong Kong, not least because the Taiwanese see Hong Kong as a cautionary tale about Beijing’s “one country, two systems” assimilation offer.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday reported on some Taiwanese organizations and businesses that are very active in supporting the Hong Kong protests, to the point of sending them hundreds of thousands of dollars in supplies.
One major Taiwanese backer of the Hong Kong protests is the Chi-Nan Presbyterian Church, which has offered assistance to Hong Kongers fleeing the city as well as supporting those who remain to demonstrate against the government. The church knows exactly what the demonstrators need – its aid shipments to Hong Kong have included gas masks, helmets, and supplies to help recover from exposure to tear gas and pepper spray.
Volunteer Kong Chao-ksun told the South China Morning Post the church may establish a full-blown non-governmental organization (NGO) in Hong Kong to facilitate further assistance to the protesters. The church has sent over half a million dollars in aid so far.
The SCMP also talked to bookstore and cafe owners in Taiwan who have organized events to support the protesters and raised money for donations.
“Most Taiwan people support the movement in Hong Kong, as we share the same faith: our belief in pursuing freedoms and democracy. From an advocacy perspective, we also hope that more locals could understand the situation in Hong Kong, as Taiwan has been facing the same pressure from Beijing,” one cafe owner explained.
Taiwanese supporters of the Hong Kong protests said they knew Beijing would portray them as outsiders meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs, in line with the Chinese Communist Party’s constant slander of the protest movement as a foreign influence operation. It might be a little harder for China to dismiss the Taiwanese as “foreigners,” since they are so adamant in demanding Taiwan must be treated as a province of China.
Nikkei Asian Review saw the deepening alliance between Taiwan and Hong Kong as a “headache for the Chinese Communist Party,” noting that China’s careful efforts to cultivate influence in Taiwan seem to have come undone after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s commanding re-election victory earlier this month. Tsai’s campaign portrayed Hong Kong as a failure of China’s “one country, two systems” model.
Nikkei Asian Review noted that Hong Kongers followed Tsai’s re-election campaign closely and hailed Taiwan’s democracy as a model they wished their own city could follow. Tsai, in return, posted an image of a Hong Kong protest flag to celebrate her election victory. Tsai is widely expected to make it easier for Hong Kongers to find refuge in Taiwan during her new term.
Hong Kong officials are already complaining about a large number of protesters fleeing to Taiwan to escape arrest for unlawful assembly, vandalism, weapons charges, and other offenses. In what must seem like a frustrating irony to Hong Kong’s government, they have no extradition treaty with Taiwan – the effort to pass one last year having been the event that set the massive Hong Kong protests in motion.