The state of China’s “one country, two systems” framework will be further demonstrated in whether Beijing suppresses or allows Hong Kong’s candlelight vigil this year to mark the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said on Thursday.
For 32 years, an annual vigil was held in Hong Kong for victims of the 1989 military crackdown in Beijing, but the organizing group was disbanded following the arrest of numerous democracy advocates in Hong Kong after the territory enacted the National Security Law on June 30, 2020.
The disbanding of the organizing group had been seen to signal the collapse of the framework under which China had promised to safeguard the territory’s freedoms and autonomy, Chiu said.
Photo: Reuters
Chiu called on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respect the terms of the framework and to allow Hong Kongers to exercise freedom of expression and assembly.
China has been growing more repressive over the past few years, showing that the CCP has not learned from mistakes in handling the student protests in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, which were quashed by a massacre of protesters by the Chinese military.
Civic groups in Taiwan are again planning activities this year to commemorate the massacre, and an international nongovernmental organization is planning a commemorative stage play, he said.
“We hope that through various ways, people from all walks of life will pay more attention to the issues of democracy and human rights in China,” he said. “If the Chinese authorities are to continue speaking of ‘one country, two systems,’ they should respect Hong Kongers’ freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.”
Taiwan is the only democracy with a majority Chinese population where people can freely commemorate the massacre, he said.
“The council will continue to monitor the human rights situation in China, and will work to safeguard Taiwan as a beacon of the Chinese world,” he said.
A coalition of civic groups on Saturday said they would hold activities to commemorate the June 4 massacre at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.
Overseas Chinese democracy advocates are also planning to hold a global commemoration of the massacre online on June 4.
Additional reporting by CNA
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