Cross-strait relations experts in a meeting at the Mainland Affairs Council on Friday urged the government to continue welcoming travelers, students and talented people from Hong Kong and Macau.
The council consulted the experts on the implementation of Hong Kong’s latest security law, also known as Article 23, and how it has affected the Chinese special administrative region.
The experts also provided recommendations on how the Taiwanese government could respond to the latest changes.
Photo: AFP
The new law contains more comprehensive national security regulations than the region’s National Security Law, which was imposed in 2020, experts said.
It allows the Hong Kong government to investigate external interference, theft of state secrets, insurrection and treason on national security grounds, with penalties up to life imprisonment, they said.
“Although the Hong Kong government said that the law honors and protects human rights, it is designed to curtail individual rights, give administrative agencies greater latitude in enforcing laws and increase judicial procedures,” the council said.
Some experts said that the law, which came into force on March 23, led to the arrest of prominent democracy advocate Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤) along with her mother and uncle on charges of sedition for sharing articles on Facebook about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which happened on June 4, 1989.
That three senior foreign judges last month resigned from the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong showed that individual freedoms in the region continues to be restricted, which has affected Hong Kong’s international image, they said.
Given Beijing’s tightening control over Hong Kong, the government should continue to welcome students, travelers and talented people from the two Chinese special administrative regions, help them to settle in Taiwan and offer them humanitarian assistance, experts said.
Aside from warning Taiwanese about the risks of visiting Hong Kong, the council should also inform Taiwanese banks with branches in the region about the law’s implications, they said.
Nongovernmental organizations from Taiwan should also be cautious, because the law says Hong Kongers could be punished for colluding with external forces or external political organizations, they said, adding that it is a way to further weaken the ties between Hong Kong’s civil society and activists overseas.
The council should review the Laws and Regulations Regarding Hong Kong and Macao Affairs (香港澳門關係條例) to bolster the functions of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong so that it can offer emergency assistance to Taiwanese working, doing business and traveling in the region, they said.
In other news, the council in its latest quarterly report said that China could fall behind in the development of uncrewed combat systems due to a lack of high-intensity practical testing.
Although the People’s Liberation Army Daily reiterated the importance of having new combat effectiveness in its report on the plenary sessions of China’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference this year, the content of the report was almost the same as the report eight years ago, it said.
The only difference from the previous years is the revolutionary changes that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has brought to ongoing military operations, making it the No.1 driving force for evolution in warfare, it said.
While the US is able to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a testing ground for AI warfare, such high-intensity testing is not available for China, the council added.
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