Milk Tea Alliance: are young Thais turning on China over Hong Kong?

A social media movement spanning Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong has raised concerns young Thais could be losing their sense of kinship with China

Interest among the country’s youth in learning Mandarin and studying at Chinese universities has never been higher, however

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Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal and fellow Thai student activists distribute milk tea cookies in Bangkok's Chinatown to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Photo: Twitter

Published: 12:15pm, 14 Jun 2020Updated: 12:25pm, 14 Jun 2020

To commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4, Thai student activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal gave away 89 milk tea cookies on the streets of Bangkok.

Each came in plastic packaging complete with a QR code that provided links to information on the pro-democracy protests in Beijing that were forcibly suppressed in a bloody military operation 31 years ago.

Netiwit and his fellow activists handed out the sweet treats to people in a shopping district and Chinatown, before attempting to present some to the Chinese embassy to send a message that Beijing should “give up oppressing Tibetan, Uygur and Hong Kong people”, he said on Twitter.

Both Tibet and Xinjiang, the far western region of China that is home to millions of mostly Muslim Uygurs, have ethnic minority groups that Beijing fears are fuelling separatism, while human rights activists say their natural resources are being exploited and unique cultures gradually destroyed.

Tourists take photos of the Potala Palace beneath a security camera in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in this file picture. Photo: AP

Meanwhile, the recently passed new national security law for Hong Kong to prohibit secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference has critics worried it will be used to silence free speech, although the details are not yet known and a senior Beijing official overseeing Hong Kong affairs has said it is meant to strengthen the “one country, two systems” principle and ensure freedoms granted to the city can be extended beyond 2047.

Back in Bangkok, even the flavour Netiwit chose for his cookies – milk tea – was symbolic. In April, the hashtags #MilkTeaAlliance and #MilkTeaisThickerThanBlood trended on Twitter in Asia, in reference to the sweet drink that is popular in both Thailand and Hong Kong, with users also mentioning solidarity with the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

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