Taiwan’s separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority has delayed announcing its plan to receive and resettle Hong Kong separatists and illegal activists who plan to escape to Taiwan due to new national security legislation for Hong Kong.
Experts from the Chinese mainland noted that the DPP authority won’t sincerely help these lawbreakers as they can only be useful if they stay in Hong Kong and interrupt the “one country, two systems” principle.
If they tried to escape, they would be useless and an encumbrance to Taiwan. Most of them have neither money nor talent, so most of them will surely be abandoned.
On May 28, the regional leader of the island, Tsai Ing-wen, vowed to “proactively rescue” those who could be punished by the new national security law due their illegal activates in Hong Kong. The plan was handed to the executive branch of the authority, and the mainland affairs council of Taiwan said that the plan would be announced within a week. So far, however, nothing has been announced.
According to the Taiwan-based chinatimes.com, Chiu Chui-cheng, a deputy head of the mainland affairs council of Taiwan, told the media that due to “the fast-changing situation in Hong Kong,” and “legislative progress of the national security law for Hong Kong,” as well as international reactions, the plan needed to be precisely adjusted.
The Taiwan People’s Party, an extreme separatist political party of the island, has criticized and questioned the DPP authority for the delay, accusing it of “talking too much and doing nothing” as these extremists want to use this “rescue plan” as a chance to show the West that the island is making efforts to shelter its allies who also support separatism in Hong Kong.
Li Xiaobing, a Taiwan affairs expert at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Sunday that it is very normal for the DPP to be reluctant on this issue as it is facing a dilemma – most people on the island don’t welcome these lawbreakers, who have no money or talent, but who only know about throwing gas bombs and hurting innocent people.
But if Taiwan abandons these Hong Kong separatists, the DPP’s hypocrisy in supporting the so-called freedom and human rights of Hong Kong last year during the regional election would be uncovered.
No matter what Taiwan does to shelter these law breakers, they and the Taiwan separatists will be punished eventually, experts noted.
The only difference is that the island’s tax payers will have to spend more money to feed these useless lawbreakers and separatists from Hong Kong, and this won’t have any effect on the mainland or the national security legislation, said a Beijing-based Taiwan and Hong Kong affairs expert who asked not to be identified.
“The more garbage that Taiwan rescues, the fewer prisons we need to jail these criminals [from Hong Kong],” he said.
A few leaders of the Hong Kong separatists might benefit from Taiwan’s unannounced plan as they can be puppets of the DPP, making noise to stigmatize the Chinese mainland in Taiwan.
This would be their only remaining value as long as they could escape successfully, but most illegal activists will not have such a chance to run away, Li noted.
The Chinese national flag and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region fly above the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, China, Aug 5, 2019. Photo:Xinhua
