My Take | A political lesson from Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen for HK protesters
- Even if the island’s president really supports the city’s activists, she would not want to take them in as political refugees
Student leaders and anti-government protesters are told they are heroes, but in the dark night of the soul, some may well wonder if they are being used as pawns by outside powers.
This was what prompted the cri de coeur from Keith Fong Chung-yin, president of Hong Kong Baptist University Student Union, who has accused Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party of “only wanting to exchange Hongkongers’ sacrifices for Taiwanese people’s votes”.
Tsai is widely expected to secure a second term in the January 11 presidential election, partly thanks to her appeal to the island’s pro-independence voters by exploiting Hong Kong’s trouble as a failure of Chinese rule.
The weekend controversy generated so much heat that Fong had to apologise, but not before accusing people of twisting the meaning of his message. He clearly didn’t anticipate the backlash from Tsai’s supporters and pro-Beijing critics alike.