Latest From Taiwan & Hong Kong [12.07.14]

In Taiwan, DPP plans to deliver what Citizens want.

• Hong Kong and Taiwan: China Losing hearts and minds (Economist) 

"Dissatisfaction with China in Hong Kong and Taiwan shows up on the streets and at the polls. The causes are strikingly similar

THE Communist Party’s strategy for bringing the self-governing people of Taiwan into its fold has long been tricky seduction. Ply them with money and favors (and tourists from the mainland) if they play along, and with threats of cutting them off if they don’t. Let them see how happy and prosperous the people of nearby Hong Kong are under Chinese rule.
That strategy is faltering. China is not winning hearts and minds in either Taiwan or Hong Kong.

On December 1st Joshua Wong, an 18-year-old from the student group Scholarism, turned to a new tactic: a hunger strike.  

Anti-mainland sentiments still run high. A poll in October by Chinese University of Hong Kong found just 8.9% of respondents identifying themselves solely as “Chinese”, the lowest figure recorded in the survey—and way down on 32.1% in 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover. Nearly two-thirds identified themselves as a combination of Hong Konger and Chinese, but another 26.8% said they were just Hong Kongers, the highest share since 1998.

Polling tells a similar story in Taiwan. In a survey in June by National Chengchi University, 60.4% of respondents said they identified as Taiwanese, a record high and up from less than 50% when Mr Ma was first elected in 2008. Only 32.7% identified themselves as “both Taiwanese and Chinese”, a new low.

Yet many grievances of young people in both places are strikingly similar. They are unhappy with growing inequality of wealth and are wary of integration with the mainland. Well-connected mainlanders are increasingly seen as interloping competitors for jobs.  

in both Hong Kong and Taiwan there is a sense that the economic embrace of the mainland has enriched only the elite—the tycoons who are seen to be controlling Hong Kong and rich Taiwanese entrepreneurs who back eventual unification.

it would help if citizens in both places got more of what they wanted. In Taiwan the DPP plans to deliver just that, with such things as virtually free health care for the elderly, welfare for the underprivileged and lots of social housing."

• Hong Kong Protester Joshua Wong Ends Hunger Strike (New York Times) 

Joshua Wong

"Joshua Wong, the 18-year-old who has become the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy student protest movement, ended a hunger strike on Saturday, saying his doctor had advised him to do so as his health deteriorated.

Mr. Wong, a prominent leader of the protests that began here more than two months ago, started the hunger strike on Monday in an attempt to pressure the local government into negotiations."