HK separatists lose value to external forces
Hong Kong separatists, rioters and illegal protesters are now abandoned by those foreign forces that have long backed them, particularly during the turmoil last year, because their value in stirring up troubles in Hong Kong is decreasing since the mainland started the national security legislation, said analysts, as the Taiwan regional leader vowed to revoke the special status the island extends to the Hong Kong special administrative region (HKSAR).
This move could make it more difficult for Hong Kong residents to visit, immigrate to and invest in Taiwan, and observers noted that this is showing that the separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has found their “friends” among Hong Kong rioters are getting useless, and it wants to cut off the ties with these lawbreakers to prevent negative impacts.
Tsai Ing-wen,
the regional leader of the island and the head of the separatist DPP, posted on her Facebook account on Sunday that the proposed national security legislation by the central government of China was a “serious threat to Hong Kong’s freedoms and judicial independence” and that Taiwan would provide the people of Hong Kong with “necessary assistance.”
According to the “Law and Regulations regarding Hong Kong and Macau Affairs” of Taiwan, residents from the two special administrative regions can visit and immigrate to the island more easily than people from the Chinese mainland.
Although Tsai said her authority would provide “necessary assistance” to the Hong Kong separatists and rioters who could face legal consequences under the new national security law, Tsai also said if there were a “change in the situation,” Taiwan’s “law and regulations” regarding Hong Kong “could be partly or even all revoked.”
‘Chewed gum’
Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, a member for the National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and solicitor at the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times that the DPP has no long-term cooperation plan with these Hong Kong separatists, because all values the Hong Kong rioters have is to help the DPP on spreading anti-China or antireunification sentiment and once the DPP won the regional election by defeating the pro-status quo KMT, they would be abandoned by the DPP for sure.
Li Xiaobing, a Hong Kong and Taiwan studies expert at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times that “the Hong Kong separatists are now just like the chewed gum that is worthless.”
In December 2019, Hong Kong separatist groups sent delegations to lobby Taiwan to make an “immigration or refugee law” for providing political asylum to activists involved in turmoil, but the DPP authority refused the request and said the current “laws” in Taiwan was enough to handle the affairs related to the HKSAR, the Hong Kong-based hk01.com reported.
These lawbreakers in Hong Kong can only be useful to the foreign forces if they stay in the HKSAR, and the reason why the DPP authority and some Western governments are voicing supports to them is to encourage them to stay and make more troubles instead of fleeing to their soils, because these people are neither high-tech talents nor wealthy investors, they are totally useless to anyone if they left the HKSAR, Li noted.
Some Taiwan netizens also commented on Facebook and YouTube that “Why would us need to receive these garbage who only knows street violence?” and “Keep away from us. Taiwan is messy enough.” Taiwan has no “law” on refugees that could be applied to the Hong Kong protesters who seek asylum on the island.
A senior official familiar with Taiwan’s security planning told Reuters that Tsai’s comment was a “clear message” to the mainland that Taiwan would “reinterpret” its ties with HKSAR if the mainland pushes the security legislation through.
However, Chinese mainland and Hong Kong analysts have argued that this could harm Taiwan more than Hong Kong, as the island is more reliant on the mainland and Hong Kong from the perspective of economics.