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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, October 6, 2022

Originally published in Commonweal

About three years ago, before the onset of the COVID pandemic, I attended a talk in New York City given by a Hong Kong activist. Back then the city was deep in the throes of massive pro-democracy protests, with millions of Hong Kongers taking to the streets and enduring the sticky summer heat to oppose the increasing authoritarianism of the Chinese government. Despite his obvious weariness, the speaker talked hopefully about the prospective outcome of the demonstrations: the rule of law, freedom of speech, and human rights would prevail over China’s attempt to undermine them. “If we don’t fight for our freedom,” he said, “that is self-destruction.”

Fast forward to now, and even revealing that activist’s name would be enough to land him in prison. Just one year after the protests began, the Chinese government—without consulting Hong Kong officials—imposed a harsh national security law on the city-state. According to the statute’s vague wording, any expression of discontent, countervailing views, or conversations with “foreign forces” could result in a prison term of three years to life. Since the Hong Kong police are increasingly applying the law retroactively, the activist whose talk I attended is still very much at risk—even though he spoke in New York in 2019. For Hong Kongers, accustomed as they are to inhabiting a free society governed by the rule of law, the new law comes as a shock.

How did Hong Kong, a former British colony with an independent judiciary that protected personal freedoms, come to find itself under the heavy dictatorial thumb of Beijing? In her beautiful and timely new memoir, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, journalist Louisa Lim does more than simply answer that question. She fills a gap that has long been missing in books about Hong Kong: an account of the city’s long history of defiance, told from the perspective of Hong Kongers themselves.

Click HERE to finish reading this review.

Rating:

Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, by Louisa Lim (Riverhead Books, 2022), 320 pages. 

China Law & Policy reviewed Lim’s previous book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia, perhaps one of the best books we have read about the 1989 Tian’anmen Massacre.  To read our review of The People’s Republic of Amnesia, please Click Here.

Interested in purchasing the book? Consider supporting your local, independent bookstore. Find the nearest one here.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 2, 2017

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (left) and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen

Every four years, leaders from around the world call the newly-elected president of the United States, congratulating him on winning his country’s election.  Although a quaint custom, there is a lot of backroom dealing that goes on before the two leaders talk: staff has to ensure that it isn’t a prank, that translators are on hand if necessary, and that an agenda and time is appropriately set.

But one thing that never happens is a congratulatory phone call between a U.S. president-elect and the President of Taiwan.  That is because for the past 40 years, the U.S. has not recognized Taiwan as a separate country; to take an official phone call from the President of Taiwan signals a possible change in the United States’ “one-China policy,” potentially inciting the anger of the People’s Republic of China (“Mainland China,” “China” or “PRC”), and potentially undermining the tense status quo between Mainland China and Taiwan.

Hotline Bling! President-elect Trump on the phone (photo courtesy of CNN.com)

And that is why President-elect Donald Trump’s decision, on December 2, to accept a phone call from Tsai Ing-wen, the current president of Taiwan, was such a shock and front page news across the globe.  Although originally downplayed by his transition team, Trump doubled-down only a few days later where, in an interview with Fox News, he stated that he doesn’t “know why we have to be bound by a One-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things. . . .”

But if Trump is sincerely thinking that such a policy shift would benefit Taiwan or thinking that this is a good way to strong arm Mainland China on other issues, he will likely be proven dead wrong. Toying with China about Taiwan is not going to give the U.S. the upper hand in its relations with China. For almost 70 years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tied its legitimacy to the eventual reunification of Taiwan with the Mainland. For the U.S. to make overtures that it might abandon the one-China policy goes to the heart of the CCP’s rule.  Because of this, the CCP will not respond lightly – nor necessarily in accordance with what we think might be rational – to President-elect Trump’s public insinuations of a shift in the one-China policy.

The Creation and Evolution of the One-China Policy

1971 PRC Propaganda Poster: “We will definitely liberate Taiwan!”

The one-China policy is not the brain child of the United States.  Rather, it is a concept created in 1949, after the Chinese Civil War, by the leaderships of both Mainland China and Taiwan.  Up until 1949, Mainland China, of which Taiwan was a part, was called the Republic of China (“ROC”) and was ruled by the Kuo Mintang party (“KMT”), under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.  But on October 1, 1949, the CCP gained control of Mainland China, establishing the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) and the KMT and its supporters fled to the island of Taiwan.

On Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT re-established the Republic of China. Both the CCP and the KMT agreed there was only one China, a China that includes the Mainland and Taiwan; both agreed that eventually the Mainland and Taiwan would be re-united. Where the two states differed was to which was the legitimate leader of this phantom one-China.  For the KMT, the ROC in Taiwan was the legitimate China with the mainland consisting of renegade provinces that would eventually be re-united under KMT rule.  For the CCP, the opposite held true: it was the PRC that was the legitimate government, Taiwan was a wayward province that would eventually be re-united with the mainland under CCP rule.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Chinese President Deng Xiaoping sign the accords where the US switches recognition to the PRC

Because of the CCP and KMT’s one-China concept, the rest of the world had to choose “one China” to recognize and establish diplomatic ties. Neither Taiwan nor the Mainland would allow a country to recognize both Chinas. Like most things during the Cold War, the choice was political.  Between 1949 and the early 1970s, almost all western, democratic countries recognized the ROC on Taiwan as China and most communist countries recognized the PRC on the mainland as legitimate China.

By the early 1970s, things began to change and in 1979, the United States switched its formal diplomatic recognition to the PRC.  As a result, the United States cut off all official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, closing its embassy in Taipei.

But only official diplomatic ties were severed.  The United States continued to maintain strong economic and military ties with Taiwan.  In fact, to show that the United States was not completely abandoning Taiwan, in 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act.  The Act didn’t just create the American Institute in Taiwan (“AIT”), a non-profit organization, funded by the U.S. government and serving as a de facto embassy in Taipei, it also, by committing the U.S. to make available “defense articles and defense services,” tied U.S. military support to the island.  Since the passage of the Act, the United States has sold over $30 billion in defensive military arms to Taiwan; $14 billion of that has been under the Obama Administration.

For Mainland China, the One-China Policy Is Not A Joke

For Mainland China, the belief that Taiwan is an indispensable part of China and will eventually be re-united is sacrosanct. It is the line the CCP has been propagating to its people since 1949 and which the majority of the Chinese people believe. Enshrined in preamble to the PRC Constitution is the notion that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the PRC and will be re-united with the Mainland. Every time relations between Taiwan and another country gets too cozy, the CCP, through the state-run media, vehemently criticizes the offending nation for interfering in their internal affairs.

As China’s economy continues to lag, the CCP’s promise of constant economic property for its people is undermined, making its nationalist promises of a one-China even more necessary to fulfill. For the CCP, failure to fulfill that promise threatens its rule.  And the CCP has no interest in relinquishing its rule.

But for the Taiwanese people, the concept of one China has evolved especially as the KMT has lost its complete control of the island’s political system.  From 1949 to the early 1990s, Taiwan was a one-party country, with the KMT and its allegiance to the one-China policy, in control.  However, starting in the mid 1990s, a new political party emerged on Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (“DPP”).  The DPP rejects the idea of a one-China.  It even rejects the idea of a two-China.  Instead, it maintains that Taiwan has become a separate country and culture, distinct from Mainland China.  For the DPP, there is only one China, the Mainland, and then there is Taiwan.

Taiwanese protesters who oppose the One China Policy

In 2000, when DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian won the presidency, the CCP grew fearful.  With the increased stature of the DPP in Taiwan and the fact that it can win national elections, China has built up its military to be capable of dealing with Taiwan if the country should ever publicly repudiate the one-China policy and change its laws to establish the independent country of Taiwan.  After Chen won a second term in 2004, the CCP decided to make its intentions more clear.  In 2005, the CCP passed a new law – the Anti-Secession Law – exclusively about the Taiwan situation.  While it continues to call for the peaceful reunification of the Mainland with Taiwan, Article 8 of the Anti-Secession Law makes it clear that China will use force if Taiwan declares its independence.  In 2015, the CCP passed the National Security Law, a sweeping law that seeks to expand and reinforce China’s international reach.  Article 11 mentions sovereignty over Taiwan.

While the Taiwanese people have elected a DPP president in 2000, 2004 and then again with current President Tsai in 2015, the Taiwanese repeatedly prefer to maintain the status quo in their relationship to the Mainland.

The Trump Call Is More Than A Phone Call

Taiwanese protesters supporting the One China Policy

It is within this powder keg – two entities armed to the teeth, one voting in an “independence party” and the other feeling insecure with its economic slowdown – that President-elect Trump decided to accept Taiwan President Tsai’s call, feigning ignorance that the call was somehow not monumental. Not surprisingly, China’s reaction was quick and angry.  But in ways, less so toward the U.S. than to Taiwan. In an op-ed in the state-run Global Times, the CCP reminded Taiwan that it would not hesitate to “punish” Taiwan and that Taiwan must pay the price if it breaks the status quo.

True the one-China policy is increasingly a rotten deal for Taiwan, especially as China seeks to use its might to squeeze Taiwan out of important international organizations and meetings, including meetings held recently by the U.N. and Interpol. And there might be reasons to re-calibrate some of the customs surrounding the one-China policy.  Currently, the Taiwan Travel Act, which would permit officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the U.S.) to conduct official business with the U.S. government, is pending before Congress. Additionally, last year Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, a bill requiring the U.S. State Department to develop a strategy to obtain observer status for Taiwan at Interpol.  When President Tsai travels to Latin America this month, the Obama Administration has agreed, regardless of China’s protests, to grant her a “transit visa”, allowing her to meet with people while on U.S. soil. The U.S.’ continued advocacy to ensure Taiwan’s inclusion as an important international entity is not only a benefit to Taiwan but also a benefit to the rest of world as it permits an East Asian state with an democratically-elect government and vibrant civil society to serve as a counter-example to China.

But President-elect Trump’s December 2 call with President Tsai does not come off as a well thought out and effective means to bolster Taiwan’s place in the world.  Based on his follow-up interview with Fox News, the call appears to have been solely a strategy to anger Beijing in an attempt to work out a better trade deal for the U.S.  But Taiwan – and the one-China policy – is too essential of an issue for the CCP to simply bargain for as if this is a mere business deal.

If Trump continues to carelessly trifle with the one-China policy, it will be Taiwan and its people that will bear China’s initial wrath. But with the U.S.’ ostensible obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act to support Taiwan defensively, it could very well be American lives that are also at stake.

For a thoughtful rebuke of President-elect’s phone call with President Tsai, please read former American Institute in Taiwan senior official and China expert Richard Bush’s “Open Letter to Donald Trump on the One-China Policy”: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/12/13/an-open-letter-to-donald-trump-on-the-one-china-policy/

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 29, 2015

Less than a week is left for the public, including foreign entities, to submit comments on China’s draft Foreign NGO Management Law, a law that will completely alter the ability of foreign NGOs to work in China.  But it will be China’s own grassroots NGOs that will feel the blow of this law the most.  Many of China’s grassroots NGOs, in particular those that assist society’s most vulnerable, receive funding as well as capacity-building support, from these foreign NGOs.   (To read more about various provisions of the law and how exactly it will work, please click here).

Aside from human rights groups, little has been said about the law from the foreign entities that will be covered by it.  As Prof. Jia Xijin, an expert on NGO management in China, has made clear, the current draft law covers almost every non-profit that wants to do anything in China.  A non-profit that wants to set up an office in China will be covered.  But even more than that, any non-profit that just wants to do an event in China or an exchange, that behavior will also be covered even if the organization or its event is not particularly China-focused.  A dance troupe that wants to perform in China, covered.  A museum that wants to do an exchange in China, covered.  Doctors Without Borders responding to an emergency in China, covered.  Universities in particular, with their myriad educational, scientific and other exchanges with Chinese counterparts, will likely be the first victims of the law if it is passed as it is currently written.

Fortunately, New York University (“NYU”) has taken the lead in organizing a group U.S. universities to respond to the current draft law.  For universities interested in participating in that effort, the university’s general counsel’s office should email Danny Magida. [Email address removed since the comment period is over]

Other fields – the arts, bar associations, business associations, medical non-profits – should be taking a page from academia’s playbook and  submit joint comments.  If this law is passed as it is currently drafted, it will cover these fields as well and, because there is a limited number of Chinese partners that will be willing to work with a foreign NGO, could squash the ability of many of these non-profits to continue their work and exchanges with China.  That would ultimately hurt the Chinese people.  And the American people.  Average American’s understanding of China sometimes come from these changes, creating feelings which have largely been positive to U.S.-China relations.

Even businesses and corporate lawyers should be paying attention to this draft Foreign NGO Management Law.  Foreign businesses and corporate law firms are the few entities not covered by the current draft.  But foreign corporations doing business in China should be frightened by this law and its sister – the draft National Security Law.  Both are extremely vague – almost definitional-less – and overly-broad in the entities and conduct covered.  Both show the current power of the security apparatus in crafting China’s laws.  This type of legal drafting might currently be limited to civil society-like laws,  but it may reflect a larger mindset – that law should serve the Chinese Communist Party – that will inevitably be felt in the business world as well, if it hasn’t already.

Comments are open until June 4, 2015 and can be filed through the China’s National People’s Congress’ website here.

For instructions on how to comment, click here to this helpful cheat sheet.

To read China Law & Policy’s in-depth three-part series on the Foreign NGO Management Law, click here for Part 1; click here for Part 2; click here for Part 3.

China Law & Policy is happy to post entities comments to our website.  Please feel free to email info@chinalawandpolicy.com and we will post your comment on the draft Foreign NGO Management Law.