Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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REPORTS INDICATE that the government is once again considering raising the barriers for individuals from Hong Kong and Macau to permanently reside in Taiwan. This would take the form of lengthening the amount of time for them to qualify for permanent residency in Taiwan, as well as removing the path to citizenship.
This report occurs at a time in which there is a great deal of concern about the number of Taiwanese who have acquired Chinese national IDs and the potential security implications. The government also seems to wish to change regulations for individuals from Hong Kong and Macau to be more in line with those for mainland Chinese.
Immigration to Taiwan from Hong Kong is higher than ever, in light of the deterioration of political freedoms there. It proves strange, then, for Taiwan to seek to close the doors to Hongkongers at a time when Hongkongers have come to Taiwan because it offers political freedoms that they can no longer find in Hong Kong.
Ironically, it is already possible for Chinese to come to Taiwan through various means such as investment and marriage. It is strange as to why the government would single out Hongkongers. But the mentality of the government does not seem to recognize that Hongkongers add to Taiwan’s cultural diversity and Taiwan is all the better for it. Certainly, Taiwan’s declining birth rates–another trend that the Lai administration frequently claims it hopes to reverse–is not going to change any time soon if this is Taiwan’s attitude toward outsiders.
All this takes place in a context in which immigration procedures can be opaque and in which Taiwan has no formal asylum process to vet applicants for security purposes. Instead, the government claims that it prefers to handle this on a case-by-case basis, never mind that the lack of any standardized system of asylum vetting makes Taiwan less, rather than more secure.
In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential elections, President Tsai Ing-wen made Hong Kong into a campaign issue. Given the events of the 2019 protests, Tsai brought up the specter of Hong Kong as the possible future that Taiwan faced if the KMT, as the pro-China party in Taiwanese politics, won. Likewise, Tsai vowed greater support for Hongkongers, in opening up further avenues for residency.
Photo credit: Pfry19855/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
That being said, Hongkongers were mostly directed towards channels for study, work, or investment if they wished to travel to Taiwan. On the other hand, the young student activists most at risk from political persecution often did not have the means to move to Taiwan. There were cases in which student activists were denied the opportunity to travel to Taiwan and then later arrested.
This was an issue that became more accentuated once the COVID-19 pandemic began, with Hong Kong activists such as then-nineteen-year-old Tony Chung of Studentlocalism prevented from traveling to Taiwan under the auspices of COVID-19. Chung, too, was later jailed. The Tsai administration was mostly silent when it came to Hongkongers who secretly traveled to Taiwan by boat. Indeed, many Hongkongers were prevented from traveling to Taiwan when borders were closed during the pandemic.
Concerns about Chinese spies led a number of DPP legislators to shoot down a plan from the Mainland Affairs Council that would have made it easier for Hongkongers to obtain permanent residency in Taiwan in May of last year. Some of the DPP legislators critical of the plan seemed unaware that there were already pathways for Hongkongers to obtain permanent residency in Taiwan.
It is also clear that, in many cases, immigration authorities have come to act under a blanket suspicion of Hongkongers.
In April 2023, reports by Hong Kong’s Ming Pao stated that pro-democracy Hong Kong district councilors were denied travel to Taiwan despite having previously had visas approved in the past. This occurred despite the fact that the district councilors were not seeking asylum in Taiwan, but were only hoping to visit friends and sightsee. Some had entered Taiwan as recently as 2021, or had applications denied despite turning in extra paperwork. For its part, the MAC claimed that the situation has changed in past years, and this was why the process for Hongkongers applying for visas has become more complicated.
Other reports indicate Hong Kong protesters seeking asylum being questioned by immigration authorities as to whether they intended to commit acts of terrorism in Taiwan as they did in Hong Kong.
The mood has decidedly changed in Taiwan, with Hongkongers treated as potential spies rather than allies in the struggle against the authoritarianism of the Chinese government. Hongkongers are increasingly perceived as Chinese and this has led to efforts to make it harder, rather than easier for them to come here. This proves unfortunate–not to mention hypocritical–for Taiwan.