The Borneo Post (Sabah)

Tsai meets HK dissident, promises support for protesters

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TAIPEI: Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen visited a bookstore run by a prominent Hong Kong dissident yesterday, repeating promises of humanitari­an support and sanctuary for those fighting for democracy in the finance hub.

The meeting in Taipei with Lam Wing-kee comes a day after China’s rubber-stamp parliament approved plans to impose a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong that critics say will destroy the city’s autonomy.

“We thank Lam Wing-kee for your insistence on Hong Kong’s human rights, freedom and democracy. I welcome you on behalf of the Taiwanese people,” Tsai told the publisher.

Lam and four other Hong Kong bookseller­s who published salacious titles about China’s leadership vanished at the end of 2015, reappearin­g months later in police custody in mainland China.

He fled to self-ruled, democratic Taiwan last year after the Hong Kong government announced a now-scrapped proposal to allow extraditio­ns to China, and reopened his bookshop there last month.

Repeating a pledge that has angered Beijing, Tsai said her government was working on a “humanitari­an assistance action plan” that will provide support for other Hong Kongers who flee to the island as Beijing cracks down on pro-democracy protests.

Last year over 5,000 Hong Kongers moved to Taiwan, up 41 per cent from a year earlier, some of them fleeing prosecutio­n over the protests or seeking a new life in one of Asia’s most progressiv­e democracie­s.

China claims sovereignt­y over Taiwan and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.

Beijing has ratched up diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan since Tsai came to power in 2016 because she regards the island as a de facto independen­t state and not part of “one China”. — AFP

 ??  ?? Tsai looks at a book while visiting Lam (left) at ‘Causeway Bay Books’ bookstore in Taipei.
Tsai looks at a book while visiting Lam (left) at ‘Causeway Bay Books’ bookstore in Taipei.

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