Taiwan says unrest shows China’s ‘failure’ in HK

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s president said unrest in Hong Kong showed Beijing’s “failure” in governing the city and vowed to defend her island’s sovereignty.

President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to fight for Taiwan’s survival in her National Day address Thursday, saying it faced “unprecedented change” in the world. She pointed to Beijing’s rule over Hong Kong, which has seen months of violent protests opposing China’s grip, as impetus to reject the “one country, two systems” principle through which it governs the financial hub — and which she said China wants to impose on Taiwan.

Taiwan would have “no space to survive once accepting ‘one country, two systems,’” she said. “Rejecting ‘one country, two systems’ is the biggest consensus among the 23 million people of Taiwan regardless of party affiliation or position.”

Coming three months before Taiwanese voters go to the polls, the neighboring chaos is just one of the battles China is fighting — along with halted broadcasts of some US National Basketball Association games and a protracted trade war with President Donald Trump — that could boost Ms. Tsai’s hopes of re-election in January.

She currently has a more then 13 percentage-point lead over her main rival, popular Kaoshiung City mayor Han Kuo-yu of the China-friendly opposition Kuomintang party, according to a poll published in the

newspaper Tuesday.

“When democracy is under threat, we need to stand up to guard it. Being a president, I need to guard sovereignty, to maintain Taiwan’s survival,” Ms. Tsai said Thursday. —