DELICATE BALANCE
Taiwan seeks to quietly aid exiles from Hong Kong crackdown without provoking China
Bobbing off the coast in a Zodiac speedboat scrubbed of identifying features, Kenny and four others waited nervously for the last leg of their desperate, 560-kilometre journey.
They had been arrested months earlier on the front lines of demonstrations in Hong Kong. They escaped across the South China Sea, steering toward Taiwan with just some snacks, identification and a satellite phone. Now came the final hurdle: convincing the approaching Taiwanese Coast Guard — and the government — not to turn them back.
Taiwanese authorities brought them ashore, housed them in a government complex and provided clothing, cigarettes, television, table tennis games — even English teachers. Eventually, the Taiwanese, who treated their presence as a state secret, helped arrange flights to the United States, their new home.
Their experience, as recounted by Kenny — who, fearing repercussions, wanted to be identified only by his first name — as well as Taiwanese and Western officials and activists, shows the lengths to which self-ruled Taiwan has gone to protect and help fleeing Hong Kong protesters. As Beijing tightens the noose around Hong Kong 's democracy movement, Taiwan has emerged as a key destination for those escaping the dragnet — just as Hong Kong offered sanctuary for dissidents from mainland China in the 20th century.
“Hong Kong was once a safe harbour, but now, Hong Kongers need a safe harbour,” said Samuel Chu, a second-generation activist whose father helped students flee China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The influx has forced a balancing act on Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who is wary of provoking a Chinese government that often threatens to absorb Taiwan by force.
Her policy has been defined by discretion. Thousands of white-collar Hong Kongers, entrepreneurs and students have been openly welcomed. Dozens of sensitive cases, including those who arrived by boat or landed at Taiwan's largest airport without visas, have been quietly ushered in, but are watched by government minders and barred from social media. High-profile activists who might use Taiwan as a base for advocacy against the Communist Party are quickly moved on to Western countries such as the United States, Britain and Canada.
From 2019 through March 2021, more than 19,000 Hong Kong residents came to Taiwan and acquired residence permits, with 3,620 receiving permanent residency.
Taiwan has “consistently supported Hong Kong people in their struggle for freedom and democracy” and would render “necessary humanitarian assistance in a pragmatic manner,” said a spokeswoman for Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). But Taiwan “strongly discouraged” unauthorized immigration, such as coming by boat, she said.
A mix of Hong Kongers are settling, sometimes uneasily, into a new home that is close in culture, language and geography, yet a world apart in political freedoms and safety.
Sitting in a Hong Konger-owned cafe, Thomas, a soft-spoken man in his 40s, recalled his journey from the summer of 2019, when he hurled Molotov cocktails and fought police in Hong Kong, to his fresh start in central Taiwan.
In June 2020, as China was pushing through a national security law for Hong Kong, his two black-clad friends who fought alongside him were identified and arrested.
Panicking, he found information on Facebook about Taiwanese trade schools that offered visas.
He paid US$2,500 in tuition for a cooking course, said goodbye to his wife and cats, and arrived on a flight last fall with 21 Hong Kongers, all with the same idea.
He lives penniless and alone in a student dorm, and survives on about $10 a week donated by Taiwan's Hong Kong expatriate community. He feels wracked by severe depression and guilt, he said, but is also thankful for a chance to start over. He recently received permission to work in Taiwan.
He hopes to bring his wife over and, he said bitterly, put the doomed struggle against the Communist Party behind him.
“Those who can have fled, or they've been captured,” he said. “At the time, we had said we would struggle till the end, but ultimately, I fled.”
Freddy Lim, a Taiwanese legislator who works with Tsai's administration to vet and bring in Hong Kong exiles and artists, said Taiwan's government has let in a trickle of Chinese dissidents for decades, but it has never seen such an influx.
“The biggest concern is China accusing us of being a safe haven for dissidents,” Lim said. “Will China use this as an excuse to attack Taiwan?”
Although polls suggest 60 per cent of Taiwanese support the Hong Kong protest movement, activists say the influx of migrants could become politically sensitive. After Tsai's administration announced measures to welcome some Hong Kongers last May, an official from an opposition party shared a post on a popular college forum, declaring: “I don't want to see a bunch of Hong Kongers on our streets, competing for Taiwan's job opportunities and resources.”
Kenny and the four others were among the last to make it by boat. He said he was arrested at a protest in October 2019 and was beaten by police in detention, a practice documented by rights activists that Hong Kong 's police force has denied. Recovering in a hospital and with his passport seized, he grew determined to flee before he was jailed.
“I thought to myself, would Hong Kong still be the Hong Kong I knew?” he said.
From the relative comfort of Washington, D.C., Kenny has co-founded an organization with Baggio Leung, a former Hong Kong opposition lawmaker who also lives in exile in the U.S., to help other Hong Kong protesters seeking asylum.
Kenny admits he had hoped to stay in Taiwan. But he feels he ended up in Washington for a reason.
“Nothing is more important to me than the liberation of Hong Kong,” he said. “And while I am here, I will play my role to help achieve that.”