The
protests in Hong Kong fuel Taiwan’s distrust of China
“ONE country, two systems”, the formula
supposed to guarantee Hong Kong’s autonomy under Chinese sovereignty, was first
devised for Taiwan. But it has never held much appeal there, and China’s
refusal to cede to the demands of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong comes
as no surprise. But the confrontation makes it harder to enthuse Taiwan about
unification with the mainland.
Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, elected in
2008, has conjoined Taiwan’s economy ever closer with China’s. The hope in
China is that this will pave the way for political unification. But even Mr Ma
insists the fiercely democratic island has a right to its own sovereignty. Born
in Hong Kong, he has backed the democracy movement there. Speaking on Taiwan’s
National Day on October 10th, as honour guards twirled rifles and dancing girls
imitated butterflies, he argued that Chinese leaders should make Hong Kong a
democratic region separate from the mainland, experimenting with political
reform as China did with capitalism when it set up special economic zones in
the 1980s.
Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) has also backed the Hong Kong protests. The DPP has long wanted a
formal declaration of independence for Taiwan from China. These days it is less
headstrong, anxious to show voters it can manage relations with the mainland.
But its supporters would naturally sympathise with the Hong Kong protesters.
Taiwan’s students in particular are worried
about Chinese encroachment. They fear Mr Ma’s business agreements come with
political strings, and that ultimately Taiwan will become just another Hong
Kong. For this reason, students, in a “sunflower” movement in March, occupied
the island’s parliament to protest against a services-trade pact with China. On
October 1st around 5,000 people, including high-school students, forsook
sunflowers for umbrellas, the symbol of the Hong Kong protests, to wave them at
a rally in Taipei.
Among ordinary Taiwanese, however, the
protests have had little impact. This may be because they already live in a
democracy, and some view China as a foreign country. “It’s fortunate that you
don’t see a lot of Taiwanese fighting for Hong Kong, as it shows Taiwanese do
not feel close to China,” says Ketty Chen, an aide to the DPP’s leader, Tsai
Ing-wen.
Coverage of the protests in Taiwan’s press
may also have been a factor. Three papers gave them ample space, but the China
Times, owned by Tsai Eng-meng, a pro-China billionaire, played them down.
When Hong Kong’s police used tear-gas, Taiwan’s Apple Daily screamed:
“Hong Kong is Crying.” Mr Tsai’s China Times ran a front-page story on
baseball.
Moreover, the great majority of Taiwanese get
their news from television, which at first paid the protests scant attention.
One reason for this may be the parochialism that afflicts much of Taiwan’s
media. But critics also accuse Taiwan’s television stations of being soft on
China, as their owners either have business interests there or wish they did.
This accusation has been directed even at a popular DPP-leaning cable-news
station owned by Sanlih Entertainment Television, which makes soap operas
popular on the mainland. After an angry reaction on social media, the
television channels gradually stepped up their coverage of the protests. Even
then, says Kuang Chung-hsiang, a media analyst at the National Chung Cheng
University, reporting tended to be sensationalist and rarely related the
protests back to Taiwan.
Mr Ma’s ruling Nationalist party, the
Kuomintang, is expected to do poorly in municipal elections at the end of the
year, which will set the stage for a presidential vote in 2016. But this has to
do with poor governance, not Hong Kong. Mr Ma, one of the most unpopular
elected leaders Taiwan has had, is currently battling the fourth food scandal
in three years.
China’s Taiwan policies are also unlikely to
change much. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has said the Taiwan problem should
not be left to future generations. But George Tsai, of the Taiwan Foundation
for Democracy, who is close to Chinese policymakers, says Mr Xi does not want
to add Taiwan to a daunting foreign-policy agenda. “If you bring in Hong Kong,
the South China Sea, the East China Sea: China has no extra energy for Taiwan,”
he says. Mr Xi may have to wait after all.