Around 11,000 Hong Kongers moved to Taiwan in 2020, double the number from 2019
Almost 11,000 Hong Kong residents moved to Taiwan in 2020, almost double the number of 2019. Experts believe that it has been expedited by China’sNSL.
- World News
- 2 min read
Almost 11,000 Hong Kong residents moved to Taiwan in 2020, almost double the number of 2019. As per Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency, a number of Hong Kongers granted short-term residency soared to 10,813 from 5,858 in the previous year. Experts believe that the exodus has been expedited by China’s imposition of draconian National Security Law and the pro-democracy protests that followed.
Taiwan, which is also battered by the Xi Jinping administration’s ‘One nation, two systems’ policy has blatantly supported Hong Kongers in their pro-democracy movement. The island’s president Tsai Ing-wen has also advocated for human rights and in 2020 launched a new office to deal with Hong Kongers seeking to stay on the island. As of now, Taiwan does not have asylum or refugee law, nor does it accept refugee applications, however, allows refugees to live on various terms like investment visas.
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Last year, Hong Konger’s immigration to Taiwan became a matter of deliberation after Chinese officials detained 11 people doing the same. Although China asserted that the arrests were made for flouting National Security Law and those arrested were protestors, the event attracted global ire for China.
Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong
China’s Xi Jinping administration passed the draconian extradition law in early 2019, triggering massive anti-china protests across Hong Kong. However, with City-State’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam refusing to acknowledge protesters’ demand and mainland sending troops to quell the demonstrations, the protest soon turned violent. In response to eroding law and order in Hong Kong, China then passed National Security Law thorough which it had detained over 10,000 protesters, seized media houses inter alia. Despite the mainland’s repeated efforts at silencing the voices, protesters still voice their call for liberty and sovereignty.
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Recently, Hong Kong pro-democracy movement was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by US lawmakers who’ve hailed the protesters as campaigners for global inspiration in the face of a crackdown by Beijing. In a bipartisan letter addressed to the Nobel Prize Committee, the nine lawmakers stressed that the Hong Kong protests amount to “one of the largest mass protests” in the history and that it has been “peacefully” advocating for democracy and human rights since 1997.
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