China Has Lost Taiwan, and It Knows It

So it is attacking democracy on the island from within.
By Natasha Kassam

President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan and her running mate, William Lai Ching-te, campaigning in Taipei on Nov. 17. Ms. Tsai has vehemently denounced interference from Beijing.

“Not a chance,” the president’s tweet said, in Chinese characters. 

That was the message from Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of Taiwan, on Nov. 5, after the Chinese government announced a string of initiatives to lure Taiwanese companies and residents to the mainland.
“Beijing’s new 26 measures are part of a greater effort to force a ‘one country, two systems’ model on #Taiwan,” Ms. Tsai’s tweet said, referring to the principle according to which Hong Kong — another territory Beijing eventually hopes to fully control — is supposed to be governed for now and its semiautonomy from Beijing guaranteed. 

“I want to be very clear: China’s attempts to influence our elections & push us to accept ‘one country, two systems’ will never succeed.” 

The protesters who have mobilized in Hong Kong for months say, in effect, that the principle is a lie.
In Taiwan, the Chinese government’s objective has long been what it calls “peaceful reunification” — “reunification” even though Taiwan has never been under the jurisdiction or control of the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party. 

To achieve that goal, Beijing has for years tried to simultaneously coax and coerce Taiwan’s adhesion with both the promise of economic benefits and military threats. 

Early this year, Xi Jinping reiterated that “complete reunification” was a “historic task.” 

“We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means,” he added.
Taiwan is gearing up for a presidential election in January. 

On Nov. 17, Ms. Tsai announced that the pro-independence William Lai Ching-te, a former prime minister, would be her running mate. 

On the same day, China sent an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait. (In July, China had released its defense white paper, and it stated, “By sailing ships and flying aircraft around Taiwan, the armed forces send a stern warning to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”) 

Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, reacted by tweeting: “#PRC intends to intervene in #Taiwan’s elections. Voters won’t be intimidated! They’ll say NO to #China at the ballot box.”
The Chinese government also seems to suspect as much: Even as it holds fast to its usual (ineffectual) strong-arm tactics, it is employing new measures as well. 

It no longer is simply supporting candidates from the Kuomintang, a party that now favors closer ties with Beijing. 

It is also trying to undermine Taiwan’s democratic process itself and sow social divisions on the island.
It seems clear by now that even Beijing-friendly candidates cannot deliver Taiwan to China. 

Only about one in 10 Taiwanese people support unification with China, whether sooner or later, according to a survey by the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University in October. Given public opinion, presidential candidates are likely to hurt their chances if they are perceived as being too close to the Chinese government.
Beijing, by flexing its muscle, seems to have succeeded only in pushing the Taiwanese away. 

A series of missile tests by the People’s Liberation Army in the lead-up to Taiwan’s March 1996 presidential election was designed to intimidate voters and turn them away from re-electing the nationalist Lee Teng-hui. 

One of his opponents, Chen Li-an, warned, “If you vote for Lee Teng-hui, you are choosing war.” 

Mr. Lee won comfortably over three other candidates, with 54 percent of the popular vote.
The Chinese authorities also seemed to think that increasing economic interdependence across the Taiwan Strait would be a pathway to unification. 

At some point, the theory went, it would be too costly for Taiwan to unravel economic links.
And yet. 

Trade between China and Taiwan exceeded $181 billion in 2017, up from about $35.5 billion in 1999. 

But even as the two economies grew closer, the number of people who identified as Taiwanese increased: from more than 48 percent to about 60 percent between 2008 and late 2015, during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, of the Kuomintang.
The Sunflower Movement of 2014, a series of protests led by a coalition of students and civil-society activists, marked the rejection of close relations with China by Taiwan’s younger generations. So did the election of the pro-sovereignty Ms. Tsai in 2016.
Ms. Tsai’s popularity then slid — mostly because she couldn’t sell significant reforms on pensions and same-sex marriage or make progress on stagnant wage growth and pollution control. 

By the time local elections were held in late 2018, her chances at a second presidential term seemed to be next to nil. 

But now she leads opinion polls.
For her renewed popularity, she can thank, in part, the monthslong protests in Hong Kong. 

Beijing designed the “one country, two systems” model in place in the city also with Taiwan in mind. The idea, long unpopular with many Taiwanese people, seems less credible than ever.
China casts a wide net, and it will persist in pulling its military and economic levers. 

No doubt, too, it will continue to manipulate news coverage to try to buoy Beijing-friendly candidates in the upcoming election. 

But now it is also launching a disinformation campaign to sap Taiwanese’s trust in their institutions and sow discontent among them.
Late last month, Ms. Tsai accused China of “producing fake news and disseminating rumors to deceive and mislead Taiwanese” in hopes of “destroying our democracy.” 

Ms. Tsai herself has struggled to shake off the accusation that she did not earn a doctorate from the London School of Economics, even though the university has confirmed that she was “correctly awarded a Ph.D. in law in 1984.” 

Chinese officials have privately admitted that Russia’s tampering with the United States’ presidential election in 2016 caused them to reconsider ways of meddling with Taiwan’s.
China has also made no secret of its intention to exacerbate social rifts in Taiwan. 

An editorial from April in The Global Times, a Chinese state-owned tabloid, stated: “We don’t need a real war to resolve the Taiwan question. The mainland can adopt various measures to make Taiwan ruled by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) turn into a Lebanon situation which ‘Taiwan independence’ forces cannot afford.” 

Meaning: The Chinese government believes it can pit various ethnic, political and social groups in Taiwan against one another.
China can also be expected to exploit the soft underbelly of Taiwanese politics: patronage networks. Those are less important today than during Taiwan’s authoritarian days, but they continue to allow community leaders, farmers’ associations and even organized-crime figures to buy votes.
Social media platforms are another key battleground: Nearly 90 percent of Taiwan’s population is active on them, and traditional news outlets have been known to republish fake posts without fact-checking. 

According to Reuters, Chinese government agencies paid Taiwanese news outlets to publish pro-Beijing content.
By some accounts, a disinformation campaign conducted by a professional cybergroup from China, which was traced back to the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party, helped the pro-China Han Kuo-yu get elected mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung: One (false) story claimed that during a debate, Mr. Han’s opponent wore an earpiece feeding him talking points. 

China is trying to erode Taiwan’s body politic from within.
But Taiwan is pushing back. 

Legislators have recently accelerated efforts to pass a law against foreign infiltration and political interference before the election. 

An adviser to a presidential candidate told me this summer in Taipei, “The question for voters this election is: Do you want a quick death or a slow one?” 

Is it, though? 

Despite Beijing’s efforts at sabotage, Taiwan’s democracy is proving well and truly alive.

In Taiwan, Hong Kongers Call for Attention

Hong Kongers in Taipei lead a call for Taiwanese to pay attention and be wary.

By James X. Morris

"We're brothers and sisters. If Hong Kong is done then Taiwan is next." One purpose for Sunday's demonstration is to bring greater awareness of the civil turmoil in Hong Kong to the Taiwanese. Demonstrators believe greater visibility in Taiwan can help their cause.

This past Sunday, Hong Kong protesters brought their message to the streets of Taipei as a group of demonstrators appeared in the city’s popular Ximending shopping district with signs in Chinese reading: “Restore Hong Kong, Revolution in Our Time.”
The demonstrators stood in the plaza outside the Ximen MRT station explaining the situation in Hong Kong, which has developed out of protest against the now-withdrawn Extradition Bill proposed between Hong Kong and China in the spring. 

Unrest in recent months has devolved into scenes of police brutality and white terror in the city. While another round of protests were unfolding in Hong Kong, protesters in Taipei were demonstrating to appeal to the Taiwanese, explain their demands in response to violent overreach, and express their desire to see a democratic and civil society in their home city.
Over the summer, it has been common to see the occasional demonstration of solidarity with Hong Kong’s protesters. 

Sunday’s protest was different in a significant way, however: it was led by protesters from Hong Kong.

Crowds gather in Taipei’s popular Shimending shopping district to listen to the protestors at Sunday’s demonstration. 

The Hong Kongers were in Taipei for various reasons. 

Some were students. 

Others were in the city for business. 

Some traveled specifically for the demonstration, while others indicated they were in self-imposed exile, worried they cannot return to Hong Kong. 

Many were dressed in black t-shirts, face masks, respirators, and the yellow safety helmets now so strongly linked with imagery coming out of the ongoing civil turmoil gripping Hong Kong.
“This doesn’t look normal. But everyone’s dressed like this in Hong Kong now,” said one of the demonstrators present.
The Hong Kongers were joined by Taiwanese and Westerners for a 30-minute flash mob demonstration which was organized the night before using social media and apps such as Telegram.
From Taiwan, Hong Kong can feel both very near and very distant at the same time. 

Though only a little more than one hour apart by airplane, their distinct histories have been mixed up in various colonial influences over the past two centuries. 

Prior to 2014, Taiwan and Hong Kong saw each other more as competitors, being two of the four Asian Tigers of the 1980s. 

Things changed beginning in the summer of 2014 when both societies experienced a realignment of political consciousness after both experienced massive near-simultaneous grassroots occupation movements against Chinese interference in local affairs.
In Taiwan, the 2014 Sunflower Movement was a massive months-long sit-in occupation of the island’s legislature and central governmental district in opposition to policies widely panned as selling out Taiwan’s economic autonomy to China. 

Several months later in Hong Kong, the Umbrella Movement developed as a response to Chinese interference in the city’s ability to freely choose its own elected officials and an erosion of its Basic Law “mini Constitution.” 

In both cases, the masses perceived China’s growing influence over local policy as a threat to their own autonomy. 

An ideological bridge had been built, one which the Hong Kongers were crossing last weekend.

The Lennon Wall in the underground walkway near National Taiwan University in Gongguan, Taipei.

Although there have been several solidarity demonstrations for Hong Kong in Taipei over the summer, the event on Sunday took a different tone as seasoned Hong Kong protesters brought a warning to the Taiwanese.
“If Hong Kong is done, Taiwan is next,” said one Hong Kong protester who has been in exile in Taipei for two months. 

They fled the city after participating in the occupation of the Legislative Council in early July, and fear being arrested if they return.
They believe the Taiwanese will pay attention.
“Everyone is talking to Hong Kong people. They know that [the] Hong Kong Police Department is very violent and they know that today Hong Kong also has [a] protest.”
The flash mob assembled rapidly, with some arriving with bags full of gear. 

Demonstrators indicated they organized organically using social media, following the “be like water” protest philosophy of the protesters in Hong Kong, a term adopted from the city’s most famous son, Bruce Lee. 

Some protesters were more vocal than others, leading the group’s chants, demands, and songs.
One demonstrator laughed, explaining “some are more like water than others.”
Chants of “Free Hong Kong” were joined by “Free China.” 

Demonstrators sang “Do you hear the people sing?” from Les Miserables, and a new song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” which has become a popular anthem among the protesters.

Notes left on the Lennon Wall in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. 

There are many signs the Taiwanese have been paying close attention to developments in Hong Kong. 

The growth of Lennon Walls in Taiwan since the summer indicates many Taiwanese are receptive to the Hong Kong protesters’ messages. 

Lennon Walls are displays of support for the protesters on public wall space, often featuring personal messages of encouragement, protest materials, and artwork. 

One of the largest such walls is in an underground passageway near the entrance to National Taiwan University in Taipei. 

In Hsinchu City, Mayor Lin Chih-chien signed his city’s wall and the City Council voted to make it a permanent display. 

Smaller walls have been appearing on university campuses across the island.
Can Taipei expect to see more protests like Sunday’s? 

It may not be easy, one demonstrator says, due to an “inadequate vision” and not enough Hong Kongers in Taiwan. 

Some Hong Kongers have indicated there are residency and visa issues to contend with too.
It does appear however, that whether directly or indirectly, the Taiwanese understand the message loud and clear.

Hong Kong protests: The Taiwanese sending 2,000 gas masks

By Cindy Sui
Alex Ko holding a gas mask in a church storage room

Soft-spoken, bespectacled, and based 650km (400 miles) from Hong Kong, Alex Ko is far removed from the widespread protests sweeping the former British colony.
But he's exactly the kind of person China is worried about.
In recent weeks, when protesters were battling police on the streets of Hong Kong demanding universal suffrage, and their freedoms to be preserved by China, Mr Ko, 23, didn't just watch idly online.
He launched a donation drive for gas masks, air filters and helmets at his church.
He's since collected more than 2,000 sets of such gear, and sent them to Hong Kong protesters to protect them against tear gas regularly fired by the police.
"I've never been to Hong Kong, but I feel I have no reason not to care," he says.
"As a Christian, when we see people hurt and attacked, I feel we have to help them. [And] As a Taiwanese, I'm worried we may be next."
While Hong Kong is a former British colony that reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Taiwan has been ruled separately since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.

But Beijing sees the island as a province to be reunified with China one day -- by force if necessary.
Fears that China will one day control Taiwan, turning it into the next Hong Kong, have made Taiwan's government and people the strongest supporters of Hong Kong's protesters.
Taiwan's government has repeatedly urged Beijing and Hong Kong's authorities to respond positively to protesters' demand for democracy -- and fulfil their promises of maintaining freedoms and autonomy.
And Taiwanese people -- while previously more concerned about Hong Kong's Cantopop and dim sum -- have turned out in increasingly large numbers to show support for the anti-extradition-turned-pro-democracy movement.Around 300 students in Taipei formed a human chain to support the Hong Kong protesters in August

"Even though Taiwan is separated from China by the Taiwan Strait, our political status is not a Special Administrative Region like Hong Kong," Mr Ko says.
"We are not a part of China, it could invade us one day. By joining forces [with Hong Kong], we are stronger. One day we might need their help too."
Beijing meanwhile has accused Taiwan, along with the United States, of being "black hands" fomenting the protests.
While there's no evidence of Taiwan helping to organise or fund the protests at a state level, there has been contact between activists since Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement and Taiwan's Sunflower Movement in 2014. 

Both stemmed from fears of Beijing rolling back democracy in their respective societies.
Hong Kong democracy activists, such as Joshua Wong, have visited Taiwan to meet Taiwan's activists. 

The founding of Mr Wong's Demosisto party was reportedly inspired by Taiwan's New Power Party.
The recent storming and trashing of Hong Kong's parliament also mirrored a similar incident in Taipei, Taiwan's capital. 

And Taiwan's ruling party and an opposition party recently voiced support for granting asylum to Hong Kong protesters who need it.
This joining of hands by Hong Kong and Taiwan could mean double the trouble for Beijing. 

But not everyone thinks Taiwan will be the next Hong Kong.

"Taiwan has independence and democracy; what Hong Kong people are fighting for, we already have -- universal suffrage," says Yen Hsiao-lien, a retired lawyer.
Since the protests, President Tsai Ing-wen 's approval ratings have risen significantly.

President Tsai, from the pro-Taiwan independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is ahead of Han Kuo-yu from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).
None of this is lost on Beijing, says academic Andy Chang.
Partly because of fears of President Tsai being re-elected, Beijing was willing to withdraw Hong Kong's extradition bill in early September when faced with large-scale protests, Mr Chang says.
"It [the Chinese government] doesn't want to give Tsai Ing-wen more advantage in the upcoming election," he says.
But China's leaders will only give in so much. 

They are more concerned about their biggest threat -- challenges to their power from within.
They think democracy movements could usurp their power or become tools for their rivals to oust them.
"They feel if they totally accept the protesters' demands, it will release the floodgates and make other places in the mainland become unstable. After all, the kid who cries gets candy," says Mr Chang.
"It doesn't want to show that people who use forceful methods to make their demands will get Beijing's support. This is totally different from how leaders in a democratic society think."
Increasingly, Beijing is taking action to discourage Taiwanese people from supporting their neighbour's fight for freedom and self-rule.

Lee Meng-chu, photographed in June 2019.

Recently, Chinese authorities arrested Taiwanese businessman Lee Meng-chu on suspicion of taking part in activities that threaten national security. 

Mr Lee's friends say he is an ordinary small trading company owner who simply visited Hong Kong protesters to cheer them up, two days before crossing the border into mainland China.
But, in a show of defiance, Taiwanese people have helped previously detained Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee raise money to reopen his Causeway Bay bookstore in Taipei.
His Hong Kong store sold politically sensitive books about Chinese leaders and mailed them to the mainland, which led to him and four colleagues to be detained in 2015. 

The store was later shut down. 

Mr Lam fled to Taiwan in April, because of the extradition bill.
In just the past week, Taiwanese donors helped him raise more than $5.4m Taiwanese dollars ($174,000; £140,000) in his crowdfunding campaign -- nearly double his funding goal.
Slowly but surely, the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan see their fate as tied.
They are the only two places in Greater China that have tasted freedom -- and some believe by joining forces, they could show the Chinese leadership and people how much democracy is worth fighting for.

Hong Kong Protests

President Tsai Ing-wen urges Hong Kong to address protesters' concerns

DPA

A protester holds up a protest placard outside the Legislative Council Complex, in Hong Kong, on July 1, 2019.

TAIPEI --  President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday (July 2) urged the Hong Kong government to address the concerns of protesters, a day after demonstrators stormed the city's legislative building.
"I worry that there might be a worse confrontation ahead if people's demands remain unaddressed,"  President Tsai said, according to the state-run Central News Agency.
President Tsai earlier this year denounced Chinese dictator Xi Jinping's plan to apply to Taiwan the same "one country, two systems" principle that it applies to Hong Kong.
The plan was a threat to the "free and democratic lifestyle" of the independent island, she said in January.
Late on Monday, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Hong Kongers were "seething with anger and frustration" on the 22nd anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from Britain.
"It's clear the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) regime's 'one country, two systems' is nothing but a lie. I urge the global community to support the people's struggle for freedom and fully democratic elections," Mr Wu tweeted.
Taiwan media have described Monday's protests and storming of the legislative building as the "Hong Kong version of the 2014 Sunflower Movement". 

The March 18 or Sunflower Movement was a 24-day occupation of Taiwan's Parliament building in Taipei, the largest student-led protest in the country's history.
The large-scale protest movement was launched against a proposed trade in services agreement between Taiwan and China which protesters said lacked transparency. 

The pact has never been ratified.

Canada's disgraceful silence on Taiwan

By Terry Glavin

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Palace in Taipei on October 10, 2016. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on October 10 called for a resumption of talks with China and pledged that "anything" can be on the table for discussion. Relations with Beijing have deteriorated under Taiwan's first female president, whose China-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang party (KMT). 

TAIPEI – The backwash from the last of three wicked typhoons wasn’t enough to dampen the mood during Taiwan’s National Day celebrations this week, although a lingering gloom hung in the air nevertheless. 

It had come from across the Taiwan Strait, as it so often does. 

From mainland China.
From her perch on a reviewing stand outside the century-old Japanese colonial governor’s complex, reconfigured in 1950 as the Republic of China’s President’s Office, 60-year-old Tsai Ing-wen was all smiles on Monday. 

More than 10,000 people had gathered in what everyone was happy was only some occasionally drizzling rain to hear what she’d say in her first key public speech since the inaugural address she’d delivered after being sworn in as Taiwan’s most defiantly democratic president last May.
There was a parade of lumbering military hardware and performances by folk ensembles. 

There were high school marching bands, pop stars, Taiwan’s medal winners from the Summer Olympics in Rio and the Taiwanese baseball team’s cheerleaders. 

Tsai stuck to the upbeat tone: “The new government will conduct cross-strait affairs in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China,” as Taiwan is otherwise known. 

But there was also this: “We will not bow to pressure, and we will, of course, not revert to the old path of confrontation.”
Yes to negotiations, yes to the “status quo” of trade, yes to peace, but no to kowtowing. 

It was about as conciliatory a tone as Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party will allow her to take in any statements she makes about the People’s Republic regime in Beijing.
Tsai’s DPP was swept into power by the turbulence of the pro-democracy Sunflower Movement of 2014 – an anti-Beijing, anti-corruption revolt that was both a model and a replication of Hong Kong’s near-simultaneous Umbrella Revolution. 

The Taiwanese are not in the mood to turn back now, and Tsai’s speech was mostly well received among Taiwan’s 24 million people.
Nobody wants a fight with Beijing. 

Neither does anybody want to go on putting up with Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan is merely a temporarily wayward Chinese province that needs to mind its manners or be taught a lesson. 

Predictably, China’s Communist Party bigshots were furious about Tsai’s speech. 

A regime spokesman reiterated Beijing’s demands that Tsai submit to what the People’s Republic calls “the 1992 consensus” between the rival republics, a convoluted agree-to-disagree diplomatic fiction involving the term “One China” that was never even close to a consensus to begin with.
In Beijing’s view, the 1992 consensus was an acquiescence by Taiwan that the “status quo” meant a continuation of the Communist Party’s domination of the country until the full realization of Mao Zedong’s vision of retaking the island from the remnants of the 1912 Chinese republic that his communists had overthrown on the mainland. 

Taiwan’s now-defeated Kuomintang government was willing to go along with that, so long as the 1992 consensus came with the “status quo” of its continuing enrichment by collaboration with its former enemies, the communists-turned-capitalists on the mainland.
Tsai’s refusal to go along with capitulation by either of these cynical understandings is seen by Beijing as a provocation to invasion and war. 

Over the past few months, China has been putting the squeeze on Taiwan by shutting down all formal and informal Beijing-Taipei communications, blocking Taiwanese imports, cutting off the flow of tourists from the mainland and throwing its weight around on the “world stage” to further Taiwan’s isolation. 

Only 22 United Nations member states extend full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan.
Canada isn’t among them.
Tsai has little choice but to stand firm. 

Subservience to Beijing – either in the form of Leninist centralism or corporate gangsterism – was overwhelmingly rejected by Taiwanese voters when they elected the DPP in droves in January. 

The Beijing-friendly Kuomintang was left without either the presidency or a legislative majority for the first time in Taiwan’s history.
Tsai is the first woman to be elected Taiwan’s president. 

Her government is committed to gender equality, a stronger safety net, a robust middle class, an emphasis on small-to-medium-sized business, social justice, reconciliation with the island’s aboriginal people, massive investment in public infrastructure and social housing, more generous pensions, a national daycare program and a special focus on youth.
With the election of Justin Trudeau’s avowedly feminist, socially progressive and emphatically democratic ideals, you might think Canada would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tsai’s DPP – the Taiwanese affiliate of Trudeau’s party through the Liberal International. 

The opposite is the case.
I was in Taipei as a guest of Taiwan’s foreign ministry, and while the Taiwanese officials I spoke with were too polite to say so out loud, they’ve noticed Canada’s quietude. 

When China strong-armed Taiwan away from the recent conference of the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United States and several European countries loudly objected. Canada did not, even though the ICAO conference was in Montreal.
Ottawa and Beijing have lately agreed to begin discussions on a free trade agreement, an extradition treaty and the resumption of Chinese state-owned enterprises buying up Canadian energy-sector companies. 

Trudeau has been lavishly flattered in an official visit to China, and he has returned the favour in Canada to Li Keqiang. 

Although not yet a year in government, Trudeau’s Liberals have struck 29 separate agreements with China, and have set out to double bilateral trade over the next 10 years.
But such single-minded devotion to business deals with the Beijing regime will inevitably invite the worst kind of influences and will exact a price to be paid in democratic values, warns Szu-chien Hsu, president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, an institute that operates at arms-length from Taiwan’s government. 

Xi Jinping is no friend of democracy, Hsu told me. 

“It alarms us. We have to be very objective about what’s going on in China.”
Xi is adept at consolidating his own power and pursuing what the Communist Party regards as China’s national interests, “but not in accordance with universal values,” Hsu said. 

“Quite on the contrary. It’s not just peculiar to Taiwan. It’s happening everywhere, in Australia, Canada, and even in the United States.” 

Beijing’s anti-democratic reach is spreading quickly. 

“I think we have to be very alarmed about that.”
Hsu said he was heartened by the recent submission to the Liberal government, prepared on behalf of 35 international organizations by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, calling on Canada to put human rights, especially freedom of expression and press freedom, at the heart of Canada’s renewed relationship with the People’s Republic. 

The submission’s backers include Human Rights Watch, the National NewsMedia Council, PEN International, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Index on Censorship. 

National and regional groups to sign on include journalists’ associations from Afghanistan, Palestine and the Pacific Islands.
“The relationship between prosperity and democracy – we would like to see a positive relationship between these two paths. If we don’t have a healthy path, one will destroy the other,” Hsu said. 

“This is very, very dangerous. It is self-destruction. It is the destruction of civilization. We are not opposing China. We have to defend democracy. It’s civilization for human beings. It’s even for China’s sake.”