The Hong Kong Protests Could Be a Prelude to a Big Showdown Over Taiwan

Slate
Date: June 17, 2019
By: Joshua Keating

Advocates of democracy in Hong Kong notched an impressive victory in their long-running fight with the People’s Republic of China last weekend when the city’s pro-Beijing chief executive, Carrie Lam, indefinitely shelved a controversial extradition law in response to mass protests that saw as many as a million people in the streets at their height. It’s a devastating setback for Lam, but less so for China and its leader, Xi Jinping. Thanks to China’s tight information controls, there’s little risk of unrest spreading to the mainland. And while Chinese leaders would like to accelerate Hong Kong’s integration into the Chinese political system, the territory is becoming more economically (and physically) integrated every day, and its special semiautonomous status is due to end in 2047. China has been waiting since the 19th century to take full control of Hong Kong, and it can afford to be patient for a little longer.

Chinese leaders may feel more concern over the implications the events in Hong Kong hold for what the country considers another of its wayward provinces: Taiwan.

Taiwan has been involved in this latest round of Hong Kong tensions from the beginning. The extradition law was proposed in response to a gruesome case in which a 19-year-old Hong Kong man, Chan Tong-kai, admitted to strangling his pregnant girlfriend Poon Hiu-wing and stuffing her body in a suitcase while the two were on vacation in Taiwan. Chan returned to Hong Kong before he was arrested, and because the city has no extradition treaty with Taiwan, he couldn’t be sent there to face murder charges. He was instead tried for money laundering for using Poon’s credit cards.    [FULL  STORY]