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The Hong Kong-Taiwan Nexus in the Shadow of China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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The current Hong Kong situation is the product of a long-term accumulation of crises and the consequences of the broader interplay of clashes among nations. Taiwan has long seen the PRC's treatment of Hong Kong as a barometer of its Taiwan policy. The “One Country, Two Systems” formula was proposed with an eye on Taiwan. In recent years, Beijing seemed to decouple the Hong Kong-Taiwan nexus as it began to turn the screws on Hong Kong. Taiwan has played a significant but often misunderstood role in Hong Kong's resistance to Chinese domination. This article explores the political impact of the Hong Kong-Taiwan civil society nexus from the early 2010s, through the Umbrella Movement (2014), to the Anti-Extradition Movement (2019) and the implementation of the National Security Law (2020). The ever-more repressive measures China imposed on both Hong Kong and Taiwan have given rise to close and lively exchanges between both civil societies. Taiwan may play a supporting role in Hong Kong's resistance to Chinese repression and subordination.
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References
Notes
1 Wu Jieh-min, 2014, “The Civil Resistance Movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong under the ‘China Factor‘” (Chinese), pp. 130-144 in Hsieh Cheng-yu, Nobuo Takahashi, and Huang Yingche eds., Cooperation and Peace in East Asia (Taipei: Avant-Garde). See also Malte Kaeding, 2015, “Resisting Chinese Influence: Social Movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan,” Current History, Vol. 114, No. 773. pp. 210-216.
2 台灣學生聲援香港反國民教育, Facebook group profile.
3 See Ho-fung Hung, 2022, City on the Edge (New York: Cambridge University Press).
4 “‘Occupy Central’ colluding with ‘Taiwan independence’ and 'the merging of the two independence movements to ruin Hong Kong” (Chinese), Wenweipo, 24 October 2013.
5 “Analysis: Interaction of Opposition Forces in Taiwan and Hong Kong Causes Beijing to Be Wary” (Chinese), BBC News, 21 October 2013.
6 “Hong Kong pan-democrats are warned for contacting Taiwan's green camp” (Chinese), Central News Agency (CNA), 22 October 2013.
7 “There is no way out for the merging of Hong Kong independence and Taiwan independence” (Chinese), Ta Kung Pao, 31 October 2013.
8 Compiled from “Official Record of Proceedings,” Hong Kong Legislative Council, 10 May 2000.
9 Official Record of Proceedings, p. 6340.
10 For different types of localism during its embryonic stage, see Sebastian Veg, 2017, “The Rise of ‘Localism’ and Civic Identity in Post-handover Hong Kong: Questioning the Chinese Nation-state,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 230, pp. 323-47; Malte Kaeding, “The rise of ‘Localism’ in Hong Kong,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 28, No.1. pp. 157-171; Samson Yuen and Sanho Chung, 2018, “Explaining Localism in Post-handover Hong Kong: An Eventful Approach,” China Perspectives, 2018/3, pp. 19-29.
11 One may wonder whether the territory still enjoys a certain degree of autonomy in the economic and financial sphere even under the National Security Law. Yet, Chinese state capital has become a significant player in Hong Kong, which endured a process of mainlandization of business circles. See Ho-fung Hung, City on the Edge.
12 The movement was a reaction to a proposed bill revising the Extradition Law that would have allowed extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China, which caused huge fear in Hong Kong, including among the Chinese citizens living there.
13 Calculated from the survey data provided by PORI. The second half-year data for each year were adopted for analysis.
14 There used to be frequent academic and civil society exchanges between Taiwan and China before the Xi regime consolidated its position. But the CCP's tightening control of civil society and intensified cross-strait tensions have made exchanges difficult.
15 “2.3 thousand people brave cold wind, prefer to catch a cold rather than take the trade agreement,” United Evening News, 21 March 2014.
16 “Taiwan NGOs will not be absent, going to Hong Kong to show support,” Liberty Times, 1 July 2014.
17 Attrition is defined as “a mode of regime response that only tolerates protests ostensibly but uses a proactive tactical repertoire to discredit, wear out, and increase the cost of protests” by Samson Yuen and Edmund W Cheng, 2017, “Neither Repression Nor Concession? A Regime's Attrition against Mass Protests,” Political Studies, Vol 65, Issue 3.
18 See Ming-sho Ho, 2019, Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan's Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; Wu Jieh-min, 2019, “Taiwan's Sunflower Occupy Movement as a Transformative Resistance to the ‘China Factor‘”, pp. 215-40 in Ching Kwan Lee and Ming Sing eds., Take Back Our Future: An Eventful Political Sociology of Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
19 For more on CCP and Hong Kong ruling elite countermobilization, see Samson Yuen (2021), “The Institutional Foundation of Countermobilization: Elites and Pro-Regime Grassroots Organizations in Post-Handover Hong Kong”. Government and Opposition, 1-22.
20 Sources provided by Hong Kong Police Department on 17 February 2020, and 20 April 2020.
21 For different lines in the Umbrella Movement, see Samson Yuan, 2019, “Transgressive politics in Occupy Mongkok,” pp. 52-75 in Ching Kwan Lee and Ming Sing, eds., Take Back our Future: An Eventful Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
22 See Ngok Ma, 2020, A Community of Resistance: Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019 (in Chinese), Taipei: Rive Gauche; Sebastian Veg, “Hong Kong Through Water and Fire: From the Mass Protests of 2019 to the National Security Law of 2020,” Diplomat, 1 July 2020.
23 Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2020, “Research Report on Public Opinion during the Anti-Extradition Bill (Fugitive Offenders Bill) Movement in Hong Kong,” pp. 31-2, 20 May.
24 Recompiled from p. 32, Table 5, Research Report on Public Opinion during the Anti-Extradition Bill (Fugitive Offenders Bill) Movement in Hong Kong.
25 Survey by China Impact Studies (CIS), Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Accessible here.
26 Sarah A. Topol, “Is Taiwan Next?” The New York Times Magazine, updated 23 August 2021.
27 Compiled from “Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes,” Managed migration datasets, Home Office, UK.
28 Compiled from “Table XIV: Immigrant Visas Issued by Issuing Office (All Categories, Including Replaced Visas*)” Bureau of Consular Affairs, Department of State.
29 Hung-chin Chen and Chen-hao Lee, “The unspeakable special measures for Hong Kong people to apply for work permits in as shortly as five years to get an identity card,” 30 July 2022.
30 “Xi Jinping: Speech at the 40th Anniversary of the Release of the ”Letter to Taiwan Compatriots,“ 2 January 2019.
31 Sourced from CIS Polls, Academia Sinica, 2011-2019.
32 Ming-sung Kuo, “China's Legal Blitzkrieg in Hong Kong,” The Diplomat, 8 August 2020.
33 “Carrie Lam: Hong Kong Legislative Council election postponed a year because of the seriousness of the epidemic” (Chinese), CNA, 31 July 2020.
34 “Hong Kong Legislative Council: the Chinese People's Congress Standing Committee resolution against the pro-democracy camp” (Chinese), BBC, 11 November 2020.
35 See Lake Lui, “National Security Education and the Infrapolitical Resistance of Parent-Stayers in Hong Kong,” forthcoming in Journal of Asian and African Studies.
36 Kelly Ho, “Activist Tong Ying-kit jailed for 9 years in Hong Kong's first national security case,” Hong Kong Free Press, 30 July 2021.
37 Candice Chau, “Organisers of Hong Kong's Tiananmen Massacre vigil refuse to comply with national security police data request,” Hong Kong Free Press, 6 September 2021.
38 “HK's Apple Daily raided by 500 officers over national security law,” Reuters, 18 June 2021.
39 “The case involving Jimmy Lai and Li Yu-hin: Chan Tsz-wah suddenly changed his appointment to a DAB lawyer” (Chinese), RFA, 14 April 2021.
40 Hsieh Chun-lin and Jake Chung, “HK liquidator must be kept from Taiwan's media: group,” Taipei Times, 26 November 2021.
41 Tien Fei-long, “Why does Leung Chun-ying keep his eyes on HSBC?” (Chinese), Ifeng.com, 5 June 2020; Cheng Yong-nian, “Why do we need a second ‘handover’ for Hong Kong?” (Chinese), Orange News, 20 August 2019.
42 Christine Loh, 2011, The Underground Front: A History of the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong (Dixia Zhenxian: Zhonggong zai Xianggang de lishi) (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press), p. 184.
43 Loh, The Underground Front, p. 200.
44 Iain Marlow, “China to Shelve Anti-Sanctions Law in Hong Kong, HK01 Says,” Bloomberg, 5 October 2010.
45 Antony J. Blinken, “The Administration's Approach to the People's Republic of China,” US Department of State Press Release, 26 May 2022.
46 Fong, Brian, Wu Jieh-min, and Andrew Nathan, 2021, China's Influence and the Center-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific (New York: Routledge).
47 For a case study of a witch hunt for “Taiwan independence,” see Liao Mei, 2021, “China's influence on Taiwan's entertainment industry: The Chinese state, entertainment capital, and netizens in the witch-hunt for ‘Taiwan independence suspects,‘” Fong, Wu, and Nathan, China's Influence and the Center-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific pp. 224-40.
48 Nicola Smith, “#MilkTeaAlliance: New Asian youth movement battles Chinese trolls,” The Telegraph, 3 May 2020; Jasmine Chia and Scott Singer, “How the Milk Tea Alliance Is Remaking Myanmar,” The Diplomat, 23 July 2021.
49 The “yellow economy,” a practice of mutual help and reciprocity growing out of the civic movement in Hong Kong, was composed of small businesses “with pro-democracy posters [to] attract supporters who want to continue the movement.” It was later introduced into Taiwan by Hongkongers. For the idea of the yellow economy, see Simon Shen, “How the Yellow Economic Circle Can Revolutionize Hong Kong,” The Diplomat, 19 May 2020.
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