The Taiwan-Hong Kong Services and Exchanges Office today officially opens, where it is to provide humanitarian assistance to Hong Kongers, after Beijing yesterday passed a controversial national security law for the territory.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) expressed dismay over China’s passage of the law, saying that Beijing has broken its pledge to allow Hong Kong to maintain a high degree of autonomy for at least 50 years following its handover from the UK.
“I feel extremely disappointed [about the law’s passage], which means China did not keep its promise to Hong Kong,” Tsai said in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
Beijing’s “broken promise” also showed that the “one country, two systems” model for Hong Kong and Macau, which the Chinese government has also proposed for Taiwan, is not feasible for the nation, she said.
Tsai said she hoped that people in Hong Kong could continue to fight to maintain their freedoms, democracy and human rights after the law is implemented.
She again pledged that Taiwan would help Hong Kongers, citing the launch of the office to help those who want to come to Taiwan.
The office is to provide one-stop services for Hong Kongers who wish to study, do business, invest or seek asylum in Taiwan.
Although the office is new, the laws and guidelines related to the services provided are no more accommodating to people from Hong Kong than they were in the past.
The national security law is widely seen as an effort by the Chinese government to take full control of Hong Kong after a year of pro-democracy protests there.
In the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by Britain and China in 1984, Beijing promised Hong Kong “a high degree of autonomy” for at least 50 years after China regained control of the territory in 1997.
“One country, two systems” refers to a constitutional principle formulated by then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the early 1980s, who suggested that there would be only “one China,” but distinct Chinese regions, such as Hong Kong and Macau, could retain their own economic and administrative systems.
Meanwhile, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said that the city already has the resources to assist Hong Kongers wanting to work, study or live in Taipei.
The city has services in place to help new immigrants, and has now established an office specifically to assist newcomers from Hong Kong, he said, adding that Taipei has seen an influx of people from Hong Kong in the past few years.
In 2018, 4,148 people moved from Hong Kong to Taipei, and last year that number rose to 5,898, he said, adding that in the first four months of this year alone the figure was 2,383.
This story has been amended since it was first published.
‘HARD DECISION’: The international medical society now only refers to Taiwanese groups as from ‘Chinese Taipei,’ after the WHO asked that it make the change Two Taiwanese medical groups have been forced to change the word “Taiwan” in their membership names for the International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists (ISRRT) to “Chinese Taipei,” due to a request by the WHO. The two groups are the Taiwan Society of Radiological Technologists (TWSRT) and the Taiwan Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (TAMRT). On Dec. 23 last year, the TAMRT posted on Facebook screenshots of a letter it received from the ISRRT, informing it that the two groups’ membership names would be changed from “Taiwan - TWSRT” and “Taiwan - TAMRT” to “Chinese Taipei - TWSRT” and “Chinese Taipei
‘NO MORE’: Pompeo’s decision was not rushed before the change of administration, but was the result of a long review of Taiwan-US ties, a US assistant secretary said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday announced that the US Department of State is voiding long-standing restrictions on how US diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, just a little over a week before US president-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Pompeo instructed executive branch agencies to consider “all ‘contact guidelines’ regarding relations with Taiwan ... to be null and void.” “For several decades the State Department has created complex internal restrictions to regulate our diplomats, service members, and other officials’ interactions with their Taiwanese counterparts,” Pompeo said in a statement. “The United States government took these actions
CONTACTS TRACED: The doctor and his nurse girlfriend, who also tested positive, have only mild symptoms, but their cases have led to hundreds of people being tested The first case of a doctor contracting COVID-19 after treating an infected patient was one of two locally transmitted cases and two imported cases reported by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday. The second local case, No. 839, is the doctor’s girlfriend, a nurse who works at the same hospital. Case No. 838, a man in his 30s, is a doctor in a hospital in northern Taiwan that has been treating COVID-19 cases, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. He was in a negative-pressure isolation ward where one of the confirmed patients was staying
DEPARTURE CEREMONY: Guam’s governor hailed the US’ move to end restrictions on contacts with Taiwanese officials, saying it would help the territory build ties with Taipei A humanitarian charter flight, carrying dozens of people who had either been stranded on Guam and Saipan amid border closures or were in need of medical treatment, arrived in Taiwan at 5:25pm yesterday. The flight, operated by China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 47 passengers and 13 crew aboard. Five of the passengers had applied to local hospitals for treatment of tumors, heart arrhythmia or other conditions, and were approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, while four more are family members, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the spokesman