Hong Kong had a Beijing-backed plan to “cultivate the next generation of Taiwan leaders” by engaging in more city-level talks following the “Hong Kong-Taiwan Cities Forum” with then-Taichung City, several US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Aug. 30 showed.
The cables also showed that Hong Kong in February 2009 ventured a trade arrangement that would include Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China, an idea that was followed by a proposal suggested by Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) in April that year to build a “mega-region” that would encompass Taiwan, Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong and Fujian provinces.
Cross-strait rapprochement under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration warmed up the relations between Taiwan and Hong Kong, which used to keep Taiwan at “arm’s length” during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) government, Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam (林瑞麟) said, according to a cable dated Feb. 24, 2009, from the US consulate in the territory.
Another cable, dated May 8, 2009, showed that US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was concerned about the development.
According to the cable, Clinton asked for more information on changes in Hong Kong-Taiwan relations, especially about “what specific political agendas, if any, are driving this shift in Hong Kong’s policy” and “Beijing’s role, if any, behind these developing ties.”
Clinton also made inquiries about whether Hong Kong receives direction from Beijing on inviting Hu to Hong Kong, what Beijing saw as the benefits of increased Hong Kong-Taiwan ties, what the purpose of Hu’s trip was, among others, the cable showed.
A cable dated June 1, 2009, from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) quoted Hu as telling then-AIT director Stephen Young that “the results of the visit included Hong Kong’s agreement to improve the visa status for Taiwanese visitors and to establish a Hong Kong-Taiwan Cities Forum,” as Hu characterized his trip as a “breakthrough.”
Hu’s visit was one of many high-level visits between two sides since Hong Kong’s handover to China. Other than that exchange, Taiwan and Hong Kong set up a semi-official cooperation mechanism to foster closer and more regular cooperation, announced when Lam visited Taipei on June 5 and 6, 2009.
At a meeting with then-US consul general in Hong Kong Joe Donovan on June 23, 2009, Lam evinced “a clear enthusiasm for the future development of Hong Kong-Taiwan relations,” saying that Hong Kong had “support and understanding” of Beijing to advance the relations “to cover more than just economic and commercial matters,” a cable dated the next day said.
On the Hong Kong-Taiwan Cities Forum, the cable dated Feb. 24 shows that Lam told Donovan that “Hong Kong hopes to expand the forum to other cities in Taiwan, including Taipei.”
“The mayors of today, Lam predicted, are the ministers or higher-level officials of tomorrow, implying Hong Kong is actively cultivating this generation of leaders,” the cable reads.
The cable quoted Lam as explaining the reason why Taichung rather than Taipei was the initial partner in Hong Kong’s new cross-strait outreach — Lam and Hu got to know each other “at [a] social function” when Lam was serving at the Hong Kong representative office in Canada while Hu was then the Taiwanese representative.
Hu brought up his hope that “Taiwan, Hong Kong, Fujian, and Guangdong could become one of the world’s important mega-regions, which are centers of productivity and innovation” when he met Young on May 26, 2009.
While giving a speech about “the future of the Chinese nation” at Hong Kong University, “Hu said he used a poetic phrase ... to describe the relations between Taiwan, Hong Kong and the PRC [People’s Republic of China]: ‘New Moon (Taiwan), Bright Pearl (HK), and Red Sun (PRC).’”
“The idea was to forget about independence or unification for Taiwan but rather to focus on developing proper interaction so that the different parties could act in union,” the cable reads.
“While his speech was well received in Hong Kong, Hu said he had not publicized it in Taiwan because he was worried the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] would distort his ideas,” the cable showed.
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