The Chinese government should respect the right of Hong Kongers to enjoy basic liberties and pursue freedoms, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
The DPP’s remarks came hours after China warned Hong Kong that there were limits to the territory’s freedom and said that it should adhere strictly to the law ahead of a planned pro-democracy protest that could end up shutting down part of the territory’s Central District.
“The peoples of Taiwan and Hong Kong have always conducted close exchanges and enjoyed a warm relationship. However, we have noticed that since the [Hong Kong] handover in 1997, its wealth gap has been widening steadily, as its democracy backslides,” DPP spokesman Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said.
“It seems to us that China has only emphasized the ‘one country’ part of its system and failed to protect Hong Kongers’ basic human rights,” he said.
As of press time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had no comment on the matter.
A push by Hong Kong pro-democracy activists over the past year to hold protests as part of a campaign for the right to choose candidates for the 2017 poll to elect the territory’s next leader has stoked friction and unnerved Chinese leaders fearful of an opposition democrat winning the election.
The Chinese State Council — China’s Cabinet — has reiterated in a “white paper” on its “one country, two systems” formula that the territory has limits to its freedom.
“The high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong is not full autonomy, nor a decentralized power. It is the power to run local affairs as authorized by the central leadership,” the council said in the report. “There is no such thing called ‘residual power.’”
“The practice of ‘one country, two systems’ has come to face new circumstances and new problems,” the council added. “Some are even confused or lopsided in their understanding of ‘one-country, two-systems’ and the Basic Law.”
Some observers in Hong Kong said the report is a warning to the pro-democracy camp, which has been advocating full democracy in 2017.
However, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) shrugged off suggestions that the report was a political warning.
He said since the paper was prepared over the course of a year and translated into seven languages it represented Beijing’s considered position on Hong Kong’s political landscape, while reiterating China’s sovereignty.
Senior Chinese officials have already all but ruled out public nominations for Hong Kong’s 2017 poll, saying that that goes against the law and that a small committee of about 1,200 largely pro-Beijing loyalists should choose the candidates.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS