Article author:
Associated Press
Johnson Lai And Huizhong Wu
Taiwan, Taipei (AP) — In the case of Hong Kong bookstore owner Lam Wing-kee, detained by Chinese police for five years Communist Party For months to sell sensitive books about, coming to Taiwan was a logical step.
An island just 640 km (400 miles) from Hong Kong, Taiwan is geographically as well as linguistically and culturally close. It provided the freedom that many Hong Kongers were accustomed to seeing disappear in their hometown.
Ram moved to Taiwan in 2019 and reopened his bookstore in the capital Taipei. The former British colony was the central government of China and its long-standing Communist Party.
"Hong Kong is not without democracy, not even freedom," Lamb said in a recent interview. "When the British ruled Hong Kong, they didn't give us true democracy or voting rights, but the British gave the Hong Kong a huge space for freedom.
Hong Kong and Chinese leaders will celebrate their 25th anniversary next week after returning to China. At that time, some people were willing to give China a chance. For 50 years, China has promised to govern the city within the framework of "one country, two systems." This meant that Hong Kong retained its own legal and political system and free speech that did not exist in mainland China.
But in the decades that followed, rising tensions between the city's Western liberal values and the authoritarian political system of mainland China will explode in 2019. It culminated in an opposition movement. After that, China imposed a national security law. The remarks left activists and other people alive for fear of arrest.
Hong Kong still looked the same. The mall was open and the skyscrapers were shining. But famous artist Casey Wong, who emigrated to Taiwan last year, said she was always worried about the arrest of herself and her friends.
"The outside is still beautiful and the sunset over the view of the harbor, but it's an illusion that makes you think you're still free," he said. "Actually you are not. The government is watching you and secretly following you."
Wong feels safe in Taiwan, but living as an exile Is not easy. Despite its similarities to Hong Kong, Wong considered his new home an alien place. He does not speak Taiwanese, a widely spoken dialect of Fujian. And the laid-back island contrasts with Hong Kong, a fast-paced financial capital.
Wong said his first six months were tough, and traveling as a tourist to Taiwan is not like living on a voluntarily exiled island. He said it was completely different.
"I haven't established relationships with places, streets, people, languages, or downstairs stores," he said.
Other asylum seekers, less prominent than Wong and Ram, also need to navigate systems that have not established laws or mechanisms for refugees and seekers and are always welcome. Not. This issue is further complicated by the growing alertness to the security risks posed by China, which claims Taiwan is a state of rebellion, and the growing influence of Beijing in Hong Kong.
For example, some individuals, such as public school teachers and doctors, were denied permanent residence in Taiwan because they worked for the Hong Kong government, said Sky Fung, Hong Kong Outlanders Secretary-General. I am saying. Defender of Hong Kong in Taiwan. Others are struggling with tighter requirements and slower processing of investment visas.
In the past year or so, despite the great gap between language and culture, he chose to leave Taiwan, citing a clearer immigrant path between Britain and Canada. Some people did.
Wong said Taiwan missed a great opportunity to keep talented people away from Hong Kong. "Policies and actions, and ... what the government is doing was not aggressive enough and caused uncertainty for these people, which is why they are leaving," he said.
The Island's Mainland Affairs Council said it hired some immigrants from Hong Kong who took illegal steps, such as not investing or hiring locals who promised on paper. He stated and defended the record.
"We Taiwan also have national security needs," Tadashi Tadashi, Deputy Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, said in a television show last week. "Of course, we also want to help Hong Kong. We have always helped Hong Kongers to support freedom, democracy and the rule of law."
According to the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Taiwan, about 11,000 Hong Kongers obtained permanent residence in Taiwan last year, and 1,600 were able to obtain permanent residence. Last year, the UK granted 97,000 applications to Hong Kong holders of British National Overseas Passports in response to a crackdown on China.
No matter how imperfect, Taiwan gives activists the opportunity to continue to carry out their work, even if direct action in the past is no longer possible.
Ram was one of Hong Kong's five bookstores seized by Chinese security agencies in 2016, raising global concerns.
He often lends his presence to protests against China, most recently in Taipei on June 4 in 1989 to commemorate the anniversary of the bloody crackdown on democratic protesters at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Attended the monument of the day. Similar protests in Hong Kong and Macau, until recently, the only place in China allowed to commemorate the Tiananmen Square incident, is no longer allowed.
"As a Hong Konger, I haven't really stopped resisting. I've always been doing what I needed to do in Taiwan and attended events. I haven't given up on the fight." Ram said.
