 First of all, introduce the speakers, our panelists. And then I will come back on the subject and start the conversations. Our three distinguished panelists, Dennis Kwok. Dennis is a senior fellow at the Ash Center Harvard Kennedy School and a distinguished scholar at Georgetown University. He's also a member of the Advisory Council at the Asian Study Center of the Heritage Foundation. Dennis was previously a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, elected by the legal profession, until he had to leave Hong Kong following the introduction of the state security law. He is a leading advocate for democracy at the Legislative Council and continues to play such a role while he is at the United States. Our second panelist is Dr. Jun Yi Li. Jun Yi is an associate professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nortingham. She is also director of the Nortingham Taiwan Studies program and a board member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies. She hails from Taiwan and remains very much in touch with recent developments in Taiwan. Her first book is Taiwanese Business for Chinese Security Asset. She is now completing her second book on the topic of China's new normal, the impact of China's rise on the global political economy. Our last but emphatically not the least of the panelists is Professor Shelly Rigger. Shelly holds the branch chair of East Asian Politics at Davidson College. She is also a non-resident fellow of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nortingham, a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a director of the Taiwan Fund. Educated at Harvard and Princeton University, she is the author of four very well admired books on Taiwan and I'll only mention the two most recent ones which are also highly readable. And they are Why Taiwan Matters, Small Island Global Powerhouse, which came out in 2011. And the Tiger Leading the Dragons, How Taiwan Propelled China's Economic Rise, which came out a year ago. When the key momentous events that we are going to discuss were unfolding in Hong Kong in 2019 to 2020, Professor Rigger was a full bright senior scholar based in Taipei and is therefore somebody who is very well placed indeed to talk to us. Now on the very subject that we are focusing on about the events in Hong Kong and their implications for Taiwan. I wanted to say that when people in Hong Kong went out on those massive protests in the summer of 2019, they went out to protest against a bill for extraditing people from Hong Kong to mainland China. That's all it was. They had no idea what those protests would unleash. Now, as it turned out, the changes that followed was sasmic. As Beijing did not see them simply as local protests, Beijing saw them as an open rebellion and crushed it by putting in place with no consultation the state security law a year later in June 2020. The introduction of the new state security law represented an attempt by Xi Jinping to enforce his version of in quotation marks rule of law in Hong Kong. Whatever one may think about it, it certainly was much less bad than if he had ordered in the People's Armed Police or the People's Liberation Army. Even then, the state security law changed everything in Hong Kong. The Chinese government maintains that the one country, two systems, and Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong models remain in place. To the Chinese government, both principles are now being implemented properly and correctly. Now, the reality seems to be slightly different, namely that before 2020, different interpretations of those formats were tolerated. Since the enactment of the national security law, only Beijing's interpretation of them is now allowed. As a result, we have already seen something like 100,000 Hong Kong people who identify themselves strongly with Hong Kong but have since left Hong Kong on a permanent basis for countries elsewhere. Now, this matters very much to Hong Kong as it does to us in the United Kingdom because we in the UK still has a responsibility to the people of Hong Kong under the sign of British John Declaration. And we have opened our doors to people from Hong Kong through the British National Overseas scheme. But it matters even more to Taiwan because the one country, two systems model was originally designed and devised by the Chinese government for Taiwan. And Hong Kong was meant to be a shining example of how one country, two systems works so that people in Taiwan will embrace it and join China. And I think Taiwan has another reason to be very interested in events in Hong Kong. In the recent decade and perhaps a bit longer, people in Hong Kong, Democrats there in particular, had looked to Taiwan for inspiration in terms of Taiwan's democratization and Taiwan's civil movement. They tried the Taiwan approach in Hong Kong. Now, we have seen what happens there. So that's how I would like to set the scene. And I think it is time that we assess the key changes to Hong Kong, what lessons should be drawn and how Taiwan is responding. And perhaps also how Western democracies, particularly the United States, should respond. Let me now move on to our panel discussions. And I would like to start off by asking Dennis Kwok, as somebody who is a Hong Konger yourself. Can you highlight to us the really big changes in Hong Kong, why they matter, and what lessons we should draw from them? Over to you, Dennis. Thank you, Steve. And thank you again to SOAS China Institute for organizing this talk. And it's an honor to be alongside Dr. Lee and Professor Rigger as co-panelists. To answer your question, Steve, I think a lot of people were looking at Hong Kong towards the end of 2021 to see if the government will dial back on its repression. The reason is because over the course of 2021, we've seen a complete dismantlement of the civil society in Hong Kong. So all the large groups that used to organize the large and million people protest, the candle vigil and a tenement square, all those groups have been either had their management jail under the national security law, or they were forced to disband. So all those groups are gone. Most of my colleagues are now in jail facing the subversion charge under the national security law. So they got rid of the opposition once and for all. And they're likely going to be in jail for a long time even before they see their trial. And of course, they got rid of their number one nemesis, which is Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai. Apple Daily is now completely dismantled, gone, pursued by the authorities as former directors. Now under investigation, of course, Jimmy and all the top management of Apple Daily has been put in jail under the national security law. So those are the major events that took place in 2021. And then they managed to change the election rules so that there is now a Patriots-only legislative council in Hong Kong getting rid of people like myself. But only Patriots are now occupying the 90 seats in Mexico. So a lot of people were saying, well, OK, so Beijing has managed to put complete control in Hong Kong by getting rid of opposition, getting rid of independent media, and also changing the election rules. Surely that is enough for them to say to themselves, this is enough. We've managed to assert total control over civil society and the political scene. Surely this is a time where we kind of dial back the approach and to pretend at least that One Country Two System is still up for business, open for business, that Hong Kong is still an international business center, that the chaos has been put to arrest all the people who are responsible are now in jail. So people were kind of looking whether there will be a change in policy direction. And the answer they got is no. There's no dialing back. But in fact, there is a further crackdown or a continuation of that cracking down on the rest of Hong Kong society. So the biggest news towards the end of last year was the cracking down on Stan News, which is one of the very, very few independent digital media that was left on the scene in Hong Kong. They arrested the directors and the former directors and the editors are now in jail. And basically Stan News has to be completely stopped. It's operation immediately together with a few other independent media like Citizens News. So that crackdown is ongoing despite the fact that they've already controlled completely the political scene and powers in Hong Kong. And other important news that came of Hong Kong recently is that the chief executive has announced that they will be further enacting more national security laws in the coming year with their aim to achieve the legislative process by the end of this year. Now, what are the new laws we're talking about? Because a lot of people are saying, well, didn't they already have the national security law? Why do they need more laws coming out of Hong Kong? Well, they see that there is still national security loopholes that needs to be dealt with by new laws. So these loopholes are what they call foreign espionage. They say that there is a lot of foreign espionage in Hong Kong in the past and still there. And they need a very strong law to deal with the foreign espionage. They need a law to stop local organizations having links with foreign organization and banning and criminalizing these foreign linked organizations in Hong Kong. And also there'll be law banning fake news and a super sedition charge will be drafted to update the old 19th century, 20th century version into what will be a modern day Hong Kong. And just a brief point about the sedition charge. The sedition was a criminal offense put in by the British colonial government to punish people for making critical remarks about the British colonial government back then. But the harshest sentence for the press, for example, was that the Daigungpao was stopped operation. Daigungpao being a Chinese state media was stopped operation for 12 days during the 1950s. In 1952, it was ordered to stop operation for 12 days. Compare that to the approach that they take today, which is a complete dismantlement of all independent media to stop them from operation forever and to arrest everyone. So Hong Kong today is worse than the 1950s, the darkest days of the colonial era. Hong Kong is arguably worse than what was it like back in the 1950s. And so what we're seeing is a continuation of that crackdown with more laws to come. And I think we are just seeing, Steve, just seeing the beginning of a complete transformation of Hong Kong society. So what we saw last year was just the beginning, just an introduction. With these new laws in place, I think that foreign elements in Hong Kong, including businesses and what is left of NGOs and foreign elements of the society will be further pushed out by these new laws that are to come. We haven't seen the text yet, but I think that's the effect and intention of these new laws. Finally, a bit about the COVID regime. As you know, Hong Kong has one of the harshest COVID quarantine rules in the world because it has to follow the COVID zero policy that is pursued by China. When increasingly the world is learning to live with COVID-19 or Omicron. But Hong Kong as an international business center, in the past, the Hong Kong I know would be very pragmatic and say, look, we'll try to open to international business. We want banks, we want international business people to be able to come into Hong Kong and do business here and operate the way that we used to. But now Hong Kong's politics has changed so much that it has no choice for the politicians and the Hong Kong government to completely follow the China regime at the expense of international business and community. Even when the banks, the international business are pulling out of Hong Kong as a result of the hard COVID measures, Hong Kong government is saying, I don't care, we only look to Beijing to set our COVID policy and we will not care about even at the expense of international business. So this is the new Hong Kong, Steve. In the past, we would definitely care about the international business and what they think but right now no one matters except what Beijing said matters. So this is the new Hong Kong we're looking at and the implications for Taiwan is, my co-panelists will tell you about but simply there's no way the Taiwanese people is gonna accept one country, two system as a formula for reunification. I mean, that's the clearest implication coming out of the events in Hong Kong. It is that this authoritarian regime cannot coexist with a free liberal society. That's the lesson we've learned. Okay, well, thank you very much, Dennis, for this rather chilling picture that you have painted. Before I turn to Jun Yee, let me just remind our panelists that there is a panel discussion. So do feel free to jump in if you want to. Don't be too polite. Jun Yee, can I put this to you? What is the understanding, your understanding of how people in Taiwan feel about the kinds of issues raised by dentists? Do people in Taiwan really care that much about what is happening in Hong Kong? And should they? Thank you, Steve, for inviting me along with our co-panelist to today's very meaningful discussion. And really thanks also, Dennis, your passionate starting statements to open the scene. I think my opening discussion now is to answer Steve's question. Do people in Taiwan really care of one country, two system? No, they don't, in my understanding, in a sense that they really don't think, or we really don't think, one country, two system, Taiwanese people don't think one country, two system work. Hong Kong, unfortunately, presented itself not a shining example as Steve mentioned earlier, but it still become a rather sinking example of the one country, two system presented to Taiwanese people. And in many ways, I would say that Taiwan foresaw this happening, not until 28, 2019, 2020. Dennis mentioned about April daily, closed down in Hong Kong, it also closed down in Taiwan. But the freight or the worry of the Taiwanese society seeing the China factor in Taiwan long time ago. My own work is about Taiwanese investment in China to see how Taiwan integrates through the business economic activities into the Chinese local and central government. But in many ways, actually, after 2010, Chinese investment or Chinese inference in Taiwan became rather visible and more coercive in many, many ways. So that's what also echoed to Steve earlier mentioned about Taiwanese social movement to react on this last 2014 sunflower movement. It was a rather backfire of the Taiwanese society to see that the land government ma to sign the ECFA or CSSTR with the Chinese government without really going through the legislative procedure. And later on, that was led by the student movement. And of course, later on that is also, I'm not saying trigger, but Hong Kong people also started of the umbrella movement to see what Taiwan has done. And in that sense, I would say that Taiwanese people already felt much about this kind of coercive big muscle of China, not in a friendly way, but in a way to force Taiwan to be part of China either economically and more presently, militarily, so the flying jets surrounding or circulating the cross-trades, Taiwan's trade has been really frequent and regular now. It doesn't, it really doesn't being accepted very well by the Taiwanese society. So I really don't think that one country to system work and the reaction from the society is very, I would say very strong, especially seeing what happened in Hong Kong. Another more concrete case would be if our panelists, remember, I'm sure that you all remember of the 2020 presidential election, the populist figure, Han Guoyu, he lost out many due to, in many analysis to say, that many due to he ignored what happened in Hong Kong back in 2019, he wouldn't be able to actually address on what happened in 2019 in Hong Kong. And because Han was a KMT candidate and was more of the pro-China candidate and Taiwanese society, so what happened of the national security law in 1990 and what happened in Hong Kong of the surprise by the government, Chinese government, I feel like how could the presentation candidate, Han didn't really acknowledge that. That was a decline point if it's coming along with a lot of Hans, really not true, I would say, of the campaign. The decline point of Han was in June 2019 when Hans started to ignore of what happened in Hong Kong. And to me, let's say pretty much of what Taiwan felt about Hong Kong. Taiwan do not want to be a second Hong Kong at all. And I think so far to this point, I can say the difference between Taiwan and Hong Kong and Dennis with all due respect to say is, Taiwan may still have hope to preserve the democracy that Taiwan's truth fight for in many generations whether Hong Kong would be able to, I would say it's quite sad situation to see Hong Kong like that. And that is what I think that. And also I would say a lot of my Taiwanese friends and society would think that Taiwan would never wanted to be the second Hong Kong. Hence the one country two system, it evident itself through the very sad situation in Hong Kong to be a lie or not the reality Taiwan would like to accept. So I think I stopped here because I would wanted to really to converse or dialogue a little bit more with our panelists, but just to lay out that one country two system is not a welcoming formula anymore in Taiwan. It never has actually. Well, thank you very much, Junyi. Let me now turn to Shelley, Professor Riga. Are they right? Both Dennis and Junyi, are they right in being so concerned and being so worried about what happens whether we're talking about events in Hong Kong or whether the way how people in Taiwan are responding to events in Hong Kong and thinking about Hong Kong? Is there a better way for them to deal with this? You know, I guess I'm glad to say, sorry to say that I think they, I agree with virtually everything that both Dennis and Junyi have said. The deterioration of the situation in Hong Kong was so precipitous and shocking that it is impossible for I think not only Taiwanese but people anywhere to interpret it as evidence that one, one country two systems is not a viable approach to providing autonomy and freedom for people within the PRC orbit. And two, that no one wants to be a second Hong Kong, you know? So I think they're right on both of those points. One thing that's I think worth mentioning in this conversation is that for many, many years it was my observation that people in Taiwan paid very little attention to Hong Kong actually. So I was frequently asked here in the United States giving a talk to a community group or something almost always when I spoke to community organizations about Taiwan at the end of the talk someone would ask the question, well, what about Hong Kong? How did people in Taiwan view Hong Kong? Or what did they think about Hong Kong? And my answer was usually they don't. They don't think about Hong Kong, you know? And I think for a lot of people in Taiwan for a long time Hong Kong was its own thing up until 1997 it was this British colony. And then after 1997, it was in the PRC, you know? The flag was up and it was, its fate was sort of determined there. And people in Taiwan recognized that their situation was different, that they were not under the PRC flag, that they did not have an end date on their autonomy or their separation from the PRC. That has really changed since the umbrella movement and even more pronounced is the change since 2019. The umbrella movement which coincided with the sunflower movement in Taiwan both of which had a very similar if not explicit purpose then a very similar kind of feeling to them which was the PRC and PRC people are too present in our location. We no longer feel that we can live the way we want to and the way we have been living because there's so much participation of these different PRC influences in our own society. So I think the sunflower movement and the umbrella movement really had a kind of similar feeling toward the growing weight of Beijing and Beijing's mentality in the local societies. So people in Taiwan I think began to be more engaged. There was a huge amount of interaction between the sunflower activists and the umbrella movement leaders. So there was a lot of travel back and forth. And so in 2019, when the protests in Hong Kong became more active and the police response to them became more terrifying, people in Hong Kong and Taiwan definitely paid attention. So I think there, and I totally agree with Junie that the respective responses of the two presidential candidates, one kind of saying this has nothing to do with us. So Hanguo, you kind of still thinking that Taiwanese people didn't care about Hong Kong and Tsai Ing-wen saying, no, no, no, this is very important to us. This is telling us something that we need to know and it challenges us as ethical people. We have to align ourselves with the right side here. I think that played a big role in the presidential election. The one last point that I wanna make though is that Taiwanese people are pretty ambivalent about what to do about all of this. So maybe later, if you're interested, I can share a little bit of data from a survey that I helped to design that we did last May where we kind of found that, you know, Taiwanese people are very, very sympathetic to the people of Hong Kong and understand that the political events there are a terrible development in human history and certainly a terrible development for Taiwan. But what to do about that and what their responsibility as Taiwanese is to the Hong Kong people is a little bit more ambiguous. So I think that that's interesting too. You raised the special responsibility that the UK has to Hong Kong people. Many people in the United States believe that the US as a country that tries to be a leader for freedom and democracy has some obligation to the Hong Kong people. But people are also asking this question about Taiwan. You know, you are the obvious place for Hong Kong people to go for refuge. What are you gonna do? Shelly, before I move to the second round of questions, I wanted you to elaborate a bit on your last point if you don't mind. What is that ambivalence we used? You're talking about in Taiwanese, can you share more of how they really feel about it? Sure. So for example, one of the questions we asked was does Taiwan have a responsibility to help Hong Kongers? And about 30% said yes, about 30% said no, and about 40% said I don't know. So it's that kind of a question for Taiwanese people. You know, it's sort of equally divided between we should do more, we shouldn't do more and I don't really know what we should do. How should we read that, what does it mean? I think one way we can read that is we're sympathetic and we wanna help, but we recognize that there are some trade-offs for us. So for example, we also asked, you know, do you think Hong Kong people should be able to migrate to Taiwan? And 36% yes, 23% no, again, lots of people undecided. So, but many more people, you know, about 50% more said yes than said no. But if we ask should Hong Kong people be able to buy real estate in Taiwan, the answer is reverse. And it becomes 25% yes, 34% no. So I think really what our research showed was that Taiwanese feel sympathy and they wanna be able to help Hong Kong people in some way, but they also are recognizing that this could, you know, that there are trade-offs and it could cost Taiwan something to provide a lot of help to Hong Kong people. One last little data point though from that survey that I really love, the strongest support in the survey for policy measures to help Hong Kongers was do you think Hong Kong people who moved to Taiwan should be given the right to vote? And the plurality response was yes, about 44% said yes. They should be given the right to vote. And many fewer said no, right? Again, most, you know, a big chunk of people said, I don't know, but the thing that really, that I thought was really beautiful about that question was DPP and KMT were exactly tied. Whether people supported DPP or KMT, they agreed, you know, the same percentage, about 44% agreed that Hong Kong people should be given the right to vote if they came to Taiwan. So there is this, again, you know, it's this sense of like on the democracy side, we wanna be supportive, we wanna be welcoming, but we already can't afford to buy real estate in Taiwan. And so Hong Kong people, you know, they have a reputation as being rich, you know, how much more of that kind of outside engagement or involvement can we afford? So it's trade-offs for people in Taiwan. I think that's what I took away from that survey. Okay, thank you. I'm mindful that the clock is ticking and I do want you to allow for as much time as possible for the questions from members of the webinar. But I wanted to ask you all, so very, very short brief answer, please. Has Beijing not succeeded in Hong Kong? Has the Xi Jinping administration not restored stability and order in Hong Kong and ensure that the people and the government in Hong Kong are now behaving patriotically? That's what China wants, isn't it? And that's what China has got? Isn't that a success? Who would like to respond first? Yeah, I think I should give a response to that. Yes, I think the person who asked this question is right. In that Xi Jinping has made a calculation that I'm gonna do this to Hong Kong because first of all, he wins domestically because the narrative that the state media has been pushing out is that the foreign forces are the ones who instigated the protests in Hong Kong, that it was driven by the CIA and Americans behind it. So Xi Jinping had to take a hammer to go and crack it down in the hardest way possible because that's the only way to protect our country's national security. And that narrative was what they put out and then he crushed it. And so I think that he domestically, that's a very popular policy amongst some Chinese people in the mainland. And also I think he's made a calculation that all we care about is whether international businesses and banks will stay. And our bet is they will stay no matter what we do to Hong Kong. And they were right, that if essentially the international community, especially the business community just rolled over. HSBC even issued a statement, its CEO issued a statement in support of the national security vote because Xi Jinping knew that these people, they will stay, it doesn't matter what we do and the international community will condemn us but they will basically roll over. And I think in the short to medium term, Xi Jinping made the right bet in the sense that, yeah, we take what we want and we win. So what are you gonna do about it? Okay, Shelly Georgunyi, quick short response. All right, Steve, I jump in because- Oh, sorry, yeah. I wanted to respond just briefly earlier to Shelly's point of the ambiguity but then I come to the Xi's question that you asked. Just to Shelly's, I think let's really accurate survey that you've conducted but I was also thinking the reason of the interpretation is it's the question actually touched democracy of the core value to fight together and the national interests or the interests of a country. So in that sense, these two actually conflicts. I'm not surprised it's ambiguous in that sense. I think the question if you ask any other country might get the same results if it's the UK to welcome the refugee or not refugee. I wouldn't say, I shouldn't say this to follow migration from other countries might get similar results. But this is my just a very two sense response to what Shelly's observation. Steve, Xi I think hasn't failed domestically as with Dennis says. He lost all the support hearts and minds in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, but does he care? I'm not sure because proportional wise, Taiwan and Hong Kong so small, but he crashed down his policy crashed on Hong Kong or oppressing Taiwan economically so far hope never a militarily. It gains him much more support domestically and stability is what she's governments and all the CCP government look after let stability remains within mainland. I don't think they really care about Taiwan, Hong Kong. And in that sense, I think he's the seat. Unfortunately, I might be very vocal or provoking in that sense, Shelly would like to say something. Over to you, Shelly. Yeah, I don't disagree at all, but I do want to offer just another possible hypothesis which is that while given the necessity as he perceived it to follow this course of action he has succeeded, I think the necessity to proceed this course of action is a sign of the failure of the governance system of the People's Republic of China. In other words, a local official Carrie Lam just to sort of oversimplify a lot was given responsibility to do a task but not authority to do the task, not political autonomy to solve a problem but just like you must keep these people in line and when you can't keep these people in line we're not gonna give you political tools or we're not gonna allow you to be empowered to give yourself political tools. We're just gonna tell you crush this thing with police and when you come in to crush this thing with police then it becomes something that it cannot be controlled. So I don't think that Xi Jinping ever thought or planned or preferred to take this action now. I think he was forced to take the actions that he has taken by the failure of the system that they set up to enable a better outcome for Hong Kong. And I just think this thing's gonna keep happening over and over and over again to the PRC that local things get out of control, local officials are not empowered to solve problems. And so everything just metastasizes into this huge catastrophe and crisis. And so you can win once but can you win forever? Hey, Steve, can I just add a short comment? Very, very short. On the geopolitical side, I think Xi Jinping lost it on Hong Kong and Xinjiang. He made the wrong choices because those two things Hong Kong and Xinjiang has completely changed the international perception of China. I think in the long run, he lost because he made the wrong decisions in those two areas. Okay, thank you. Let's now move on to deal with the many questions that I have already received in the Q&A box. Some of them are quite Hong Kong specific. Some of them are more general. Let me start with one which is rather Hong Kong specific. And this one comes from John Gitting, who is a research associate at SOAST. John would like you to help him understand his psychology of people like Harry Lam as well as other Hong Kong leaders. Including some of those who had cooperated with Hong Kong social movements, for example, criticize the tenement Mexica in the past. And they are now supporting enthusiastically the Chinese government some 100% and even parrot some of Beijing's language. Why are they doing that? I think this one is ready for you. I don't think I can understand the psychology of Carrie Lam. For that to happen, you have to send me to a mental asylum first. I think if you look at a lot of the people in Hong Kong who used to enjoy the freedom, some of them even supported the students in Tenement Square and now come to a point where it affects them directly. They actually stand on the side of authority, stand on the side of the oppressor and you ask, why is that happening? That's happened many, many times over the course of history. The reason why these authoritarian regime works is because people are too scared to stand up to them. In fact, it is much more convenient, a much easier for them to side with the authoritarian oppressor because it is just in their interest of doing so. When it comes to these people sort of switching side, I think they never switched side. In fact, they just go with the flow. Back in 89, it was very popular, very easy for, I would always use the pop singers and the actors and actresses. They came out in support of the 89 democratic movement. All of them virtually went on stage, they sang, they got donations together. But when it came to 2019, all of them were against the protest movement in Hong Kong and they apparently failed to see the similarities in what the young people want in 1989 and what the young people want in Hong Kong which is to fight for their freedom. But because it is inconvenient for them to do so at this point. China market is too big. It is too much money to say no to because the moment you stand on the side of the protest, you'll be identified and marked out by the Chinese authorities and you will never be able to enter the China market. In fact, you'll be driven out of even the Hong Kong market. So money talks, Steve. Nowadays, back in 89, there's no China market to speak of. Now the China market is billions and billions of dollars for one singer, one actor, for one businessman. It is too much to say no to. Thank you. Let me pick a second question which is more directed at Taiwan or about Taiwan. And this comes from William Knight in London. As the mainland of China ups the pressure on Taiwan, can one expect that this will lead to a brain drain from Taiwan similar to that from Hong Kong? Junyi, would you like to take the first go? Thank you for the question. The brain drain from Taiwan. Will people in Taiwan leave Taiwan fearing annihilation? Interesting question. Actually, the brain drain from Taiwan already started earlier and the brain or talents actually went to China before. They were quite high percentage of Taiwanese young, graduated, went to China for work. And because they were quite, the perspective of working in China was larger than working in Taiwan. The brain drain already started. But interestingly, it doesn't really change. Taiwan doesn't accept one country, two systems situation. So butter and bread in China, Dennis said about the money talks. Taiwanese also knows about the money talks. So they work in China, but they don't vote or they don't express their preference of wanting to be part of China. And to me, that's a very interesting situation. Whether Taiwanese will go as well as Hong Kong, most of the Hong Kong people including Dennis himself are doing so. I don't see that major percentage of Taiwanese leaving the area of Taiwan, China to flee because Taiwanese still very much, as I mentioned, have a hope that Taiwan would maintain as it is now. I don't really see that would happen in a very near future. But if China did to Taiwan, that's another matter. I wouldn't be able to really say much of what if that would become of the Taiwanese people. Yeah. OK. Shirley, would you like to jump in with your survey data and all that? OK. I don't have much to add, so let's move on. OK, let's move on. I'll come back to you on another Taiwan question. I wanted to ask the next question also about Hong Kong, actually, a very specific question about Hong Kong, which is in a sense directed to Dennis. You talk a lot about the Hong Kong media and this question is about the SEMP from Susan Burt in New York City. And Susan would like to ask you, can Hong Kong's flagship newspaper, The South China Morning Post, provide fair and balanced reporting on China news? And if so, what can be done to ensure? Or if it doesn't, what can be done to ensure that it does so? There's no independent media left in Hong Kong. SEMP is owned by Jack Ma. And Jack Ma himself is allegedly under house arrest for some time earlier this year, last year. So that's the situation. And independent media is no longer possible. All of them have been wiped out. My friends in Hong Kong tell me they don't read the newspaper anymore because it's like every newspaper you pick up is like Wen Wei Bao or the Dai Kung Bao in various degrees. And for newspaper like SEMP, they adopt the strategy of what in Chinese calls xiu ma dai bom mo, which means that you criticize a little bit and you just avoid the big points. And by criticizing the authorities a little bit, you appear kind of neutral. You kind of, oh, I'm so impartial. But in fact, you're just doing the authorities a big favor. That's a very common strategy adopted by a lot of newspapers in China and a lot of newspaper in Hong Kong adopting that strategy. So that's what I see happening in Hong Kong. Right, I think I will pick a next question which is about Taiwan and the rapids to you, Shelley. It's a question from, it's about Jiang. And she wanted to know whether you think the government of Taiwan will have the appetite to pass the refugee act to accommodate if not attract Hong Kongers to settled in Taiwan? That's the $64,000 question, right? $64,000 isn't even that much money anymore, but that's what we say in the US. Will Tai Ing-wen and her government actually spend the political capital in this rather ambivalent public opinion moment to create the legal framework for refugees and political asylum seekers to enter Taiwan? And I actually think it's pretty unlikely in the near term just because I'm thinking about the other political challenging political moves that Tai Ing-wen has to make at the moment. So she's basically, I think if we look at her activity much of it is oriented towards shoring up Taiwan's international support. So she spent a lot of political capital and faced a very severe challenge in the referendum in order to clear an obstacle to better US-Taiwan relations, which was the whole pork thing. And now she is again investing political capital in securing Taiwan's relations with Japan, including something else that's very controversial and actually we know unpopular in Taiwan, which is allowing food imports from the Fukushima area. So I think on her list of priorities, a refugee or political asylum law is not super high. I'm sorry to report that, but that is my assessment. Thank you. I want to turn next to Jun Yi. There's a question that was specifically directed to you from Sohn Ho-Tung. And Sohn's talks about the militaristic propaganda in China about Taiwan and the fact that there are plenty of Chinese military jets flying into Taiwan's airspace. And the question is, can you shed light on how the government in Taiwan feels about this and thinks about it? Does it believe that it will be attacked, particularly after the American fiasco in Afghanistan? Thank you. Very good question. Billionaire dollars question. Shelly, is that more than 64,000? I can't say, I'm not a government. So I don't know what do they think, but I can provide you my observation. Chinese military intimidation to Taiwan is not new. It started in 1996, the missile crisis. When Taiwan started to have the presentation election, that's usually the fighters just cross the Taiwan Strait to intimidate Taiwanese governments and people, but always and always started from 1996, caused the backfile that Taiwanese people feel like, we have the right to vote the government we want. So actually make China looks more uglier to the Taiwanese people. Your question is about whether Taiwanese government think whether that would be a real threat. I wouldn't say they don't think they wouldn't or wouldn't not, but Taiwan of course prepared for the possibility of the invasion, military wise, but Taiwan also watched closely with not only the Afghanistan fiasco, sorry to say that, but also I think I mentioned to few friends and also the contributors to our Taiwan inside about current Ukraine crisis. It's not just about what American does. Of course America is the most important ally to Taiwan, but whether the geopolitics would be able to counter these kind of military invasion as Russia to Ukraine with force, not only with economic sanction. Taiwan is watching closely along with China. So I'm afraid I don't know what the government think, but I can only say from my observation that's what the Taiwanese people and government perhaps people definitely feel so. I'm not sure whether that would be the government line. Shelley wants to jump in. Indeed, Shelley. Yeah, just to say that what is the right decision for the US to make with respect to Afghanistan or Ukraine is not necessarily following the same logic that the US would follow with respect to Taiwan. So for the US to kind of exhaust itself everywhere, just trying to be in control everywhere, I don't think it's a good sign for Taiwan actually. To me, what Taiwanese leaders ought to be looking for is the US serious about defining and understanding its most essential interests and defending those and not necessarily always just doing everything that looks like it's projecting strength. So I saw the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which indeed looked pretty awful when it was happening, but in some ways as an acknowledgement by the US that we must focus on our most significant national interests and democracy building, nation building in Afghanistan was never gonna succeed and it wasn't that interest. And we were depleting our resources to do something that wasn't gonna work and didn't really matter. I think for Taiwan, whether or not Taiwan matters to the US is a freestanding question and how the US manages its relations with Afghanistan or Ukraine are other questions driven by other calculations of interest. Thank you, Dennis, you want to come in as well. Yeah, Steve, I think in this conversation, we mustn't ignore what is happening in domestic Chinese politics and that is very important in the equation because the China we're looking at is very different from the China 10 years ago, politically speaking. Now we have Xi Jinping who wants to be lifetime president for lack of a better term. In order to do that, he needs a political legacy. And I believe that for him to equate, he's recently conflated the question of the reunification of Taiwan with the rejuvenation of the Chinese civilization. Now for him, this big thing about rejuvenation of the Chinese civilization is his main political legacy. And he say that we cannot have rejuvenation of the Chinese civilization with a split country. So the reunification of Taiwan is a very important question. I believe he won't do it in the short term because he needs to secure his third term in November this year. But beyond that point, I think the situation will become much more unpredictable because he will be under pressure or there's a political need for him to do something on Taiwan. He cannot sit on the issue forever. And in his own words, he said that he's not gonna leave it to the next generation or continue to kick the can down the road. And when people talk about invasion of Taiwan, we tend to think a full scale amphibious invasion. But in fact, between doing nothing and a full scale invasion, there are many different options which they could take. I think we need to consider those carefully. Okay, thank you. I think we have done these questions full justice. Let's move on. And I want us to pick the next question from Gemma O'Neill from the foreign and Commonwealth Development Office. And Gemma is directing, I think this question perhaps mostly to you, Dennis, but others welcome to join in. Is there anything remaining in Hong Kong's systems that remains appealing and worth preserving from the perspective of Beijing? Or is Beijing now so concerned about bringing Hong Kong fully in line with the mainland that they will do whatever? I think the future of Hong Kong is that it will be further integrated into the Greater Bay Area. They have said this many times when I was a lawmaker, I would go to talk to the PRC officials in charge of this project and they would say that further integration is inevitable. I think in a few years time, we will no longer see a border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. I think we will see parts of Hong Kong being carved off to be administered by the Qianhai or the Shenzhen administration applying PRC rules or in the name that is in the national interest of Hong Kong to do so. And I think there's one thing that of significant interest and benefit to the China, which is the foreign reserve of Hong Kong and the government reserve. Together, Hong Kong holds about $600 billion in reserves or in US currency or a mixture of very liquid assets. China need that. China wants access to that money for a long time. And with the economic situation, with a slowing economy and capital restrictions tightening up, it will want to make use or have access to that $600 billion. And I think that will happen in various ways by way of massive infrastructure projects that Hong Kong really doesn't need. But using that to basically take away the reserves of Hong Kong for national purposes. Right. Well, next question I'll move against to Taiwan and the questions comes from Neil Edbrook. How vulnerable is Taiwan because of its economic ties to China? Just as international business has compromised in Hong Kong, how capable is Taiwan of standing against China's control through economic levers? I'll probably go to Junyi first and see whether Shelley would like to jump in as well. Junyi? Shelley, I will pay for the ground for you because you have more to say here. Taiwan has 70% of economic export market to China. And it's very unsymmetric. It's very asymmetric of China to Taiwan, only 3% of Chinese investments or export market to Taiwan. The data maybe need to be reviewed because it was a little bit like three years ago of the data. But you could see that it's a symmetric economic imbalance if you like of China-Taiwan. However, what I wanted to say is if you take it as the value of the China-Taiwan economic trade, you will see it's really asymmetric. That's only because the value is consumed a lot of the manufacturing of Taiwanese manufacturing in China. However, what Taiwan is holding the golden key is a semiconductor. The semiconductor, of course, there still were manufacturing some of the less advanced range of the semiconductor were manufactured in China, but many they hold the production line or factories within Taiwan or closely linked with the USA. So from that point of view, the value doesn't really matter because we need to look at the quality, the core of the Taiwanese economic development or technology development. That is lying on the semiconductor and no way that Taiwan would let the Chinese investment or invest in China to sort of give them more of the know-how in that sense. Apart from the China-Taiwan economic connection in the past already exists really strongly. Under Tai, she started a new suspend policy. I think there still need to be seen more but Taiwan really wanted to divert of the economic investments in the Southbound Vietnam or Malaysia, Indonesia Tai is working hard on the Taiwan's new Southbound policy. So I stop here and I'm sure Shelley would have more to add on. No, just really briefly, that's a great answer. Also, I think we got to remember that part of the reason for the asymmetrical nature of cross-state, cross-strait economic interactions is that people in Taiwan would rather not be the recipients of investment and so on. So I think something very important that Junie mentioned earlier is what happened around between 2010 and 2014 that transformed Taiwan's domestic political scene in a much more sort of sino-sceptical or China-critical way. My hypothesis for that is that what happened was the one-way straight, Taiwanese people going to the mainland to work, going to the mainland to invest and so on started to become more of a two-way straight where people, especially tourists but also students and some business people were coming to visit Taiwan and the PRC and the Taiwanese government were negotiating investment agreements that would allow PRC money to come to Taiwan. And I think that's what really woke people up in Taiwan to say, wait a minute, this is too much. We cannot absorb all of this. And so you got this series of protest movements from 2012 culminating with the sunflower movement which put an end to new cross-strait agreements, economic agreements. And I don't think that was because Taiwanese people said, oh, we need to have, we need to stop going to the mainland. It was the mainland needs to stop coming here. So this asymmetry is, it's also protective of Taiwan. A fully symmetrical and even investment environment, for example, would overwhelm Taiwan, completely overwhelm Taiwan. So I quite agree with Junie that this is super complicated and finding out how to measure Taiwan's vulnerability through the economic channels is very, very, very difficult. Okay, next question from Jonathan Fenby directed against Hong Kong. So, Dennis, was it ever possible for Hong Kong to have a post handover government which would stand up for its interests against Beijing? No, I think looking back, one country, two system always had its contradictions. We know that. But the lesson we've learned from Hong Kong is that you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve the Hong Kong people and at the same time serve your master in Beijing. At the end of the day, Beijing will force you to choose and the answer will always you have to stand on Beijing's side. If you dare to cross Beijing, the consequences for you would be dire. So the chief executive, Donald Zhang, apparently forced Beijing to start the constitutional reform. Otherwise he will resign, he threatened Beijing. And then after he left the office, he was prosecuted for craft and spent a year and a half in jail before having his name cleared in the court of final appeal. And another chief executive, CY Lung, had similar issues with craft and pocketing money while he was in office. He was never prosecuted because he told Beijing's line 150%. So, that's the kind of government we've had since the handover. And it was not possible because Beijing will always restrict the election system. The reason why they don't introduce universal suffrage to Hong Kong is because once democracy is fully introduced to Hong Kong, the chief executive wouldn't listen to Beijing. It would have to listen to the Hong Kong people and that is not what they wanted. It is something that Beijing wants complete control. Comprehensive jurisdiction, the term was formally coined in the state paper, state council paper of 2014, to mean Guanzikun. And that is what Beijing has in mind all this time. But it took Xi Jinping to be the leader to come up with from the hiding and say, this is actually what we met when we talk about one country, two systems. And I agree with Shelley's point about why Taiwanese people really kind of changed the attitude is because of the way China behaves. I mean, if you look at one cultural point, which is the song, fragile heart that has 15 million people listening to it on YouTube, it is really making fun of the way China behaves with the wolf warrior diplomacy, oh, you offend me, this, you offend me, that it is the way they behave that changed people's mind elsewhere about how they look at China. Thank you. Next question I will pick, it will deal with more on the Taiwan side of things, but with a British angle to it as well. And this comes from Sam Jackson, I presume in London. It recently emerged that the British foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons will travel to Taiwan for a fortnight or in a fortnight coinciding with the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics. Is it possible for Western democracies to engage with Taiwan without looking back lashes from Beijing? Shelley, you want to have a go first? No, it is not possible. And so we have to think about whether or not the thing that we're doing is worth the backlash that we're going to get. So for example, you know, something like the name that you put on the representative office that Taiwan has in your country. Recently, back in the fall of so 2021, there was a lot of discussion in the US. Should we rename our office from Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office to Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office? And I advocated that we should not do that, that the US should not do that because the substantive benefit of doing so was minimal. The US has many other far more substantively significant actions that we can and do take to show support for Taiwan, including arms sales, including the possibility of negotiating some kind of free trade arrangement. There are things that the US could do that would really make a difference, or we could change the name on that office, which would not make that much of a difference, but would definitely provoke a very strong backlash from Beijing. So I think when US politicians, especially members of Congress go to Taiwan, which they do from time to time, most of the time that's good thing, like I'm not against it. But when they get off the plane and tweet, I've just arrived here in the Republic of Taiwan, they've just undone a lot of useful work that others have done by exposing Taiwan to unnecessary attacks from the PRC for which the PRC can actually mount a reasonable amount of evidence. So just giving Beijing what it is looking for in terms of these gratuitous gestures is not a good idea, but paying a little bit of a price or even allowing Taiwan to pay a little bit of a price for a substantive step forward is a good idea. Again, it's complicated. Thank you, Junyi, you like to come in. Just briefly, agreed totally, that's why I, but Republic of China, Shelley, just to say hasn't yet Republic of Taiwan. No, but this member of the US Congress got off the plane in Taiwan and tweeted that she was in the Republic of Taiwan. And, you know, it doesn't help. Yeah, it doesn't help. Yeah, I just wanted to say that it's more of the substantial help that Taiwan needs, but it is also important of the Western democracy would reach out to Taiwan. And that is important. And I think Shelley got the points of the name changing of especially USA wouldn't really help Taiwan. That's what many of my students actually asked me, actually Trump is very good to Taiwan, right? So it's flag up the Taiwan's importance, but I actually, I had the same line with Shelley, it's better to give a substantial support from the USA to Taiwan. But what ties gained, Tsai Ing-wen, the president gained from the international support is from, for instance, the Lithuanians changing of the Taiwan representative office. They would feel like it's really gets support of the European supports for the Taiwan office man. But I agree with Shelley that from America, especially America, the unnecessary man or the flagship, it doesn't help. The substantial help is more needed from the Taiwan's perspective. Next question comes in a very different angle. It's really more about China's policy rather than what happened rather than Hong Kong or Taiwan. So it's for kind of all of you. It comes from Tao Huang and I'm paraphrasing. The question really is about surely that Beijing can see is approach to Hong Kong will have significant impact on Taiwan, not difficult to have foreseen that. Why then did Beijing not take the impact on Taiwan into account when it repressed Hong Kong? Again, my hypothesis here is they did and they decided crushing the Hong Kong resistance was more important than any other objective. I mean, I don't see how this is in any way a win for China with respect to Taiwan, but it's like, you have two bad outcomes. This is why I think it's really important to consider the possibility that from Xi Jinping's perspective, this is not where he wanted to be in 2022. Across anything, does he want his country to be closed for the foreseeable future by COVID? Does he want to be facing the economic situation he's facing? Does he want to be facing the global economic or diplomatic antagonism that he's facing? I think Xi Jinping is failing. And these kinds of hard line actions are evidence of failure, not success. That's my theory. Okay. Anyone else? If not, I'll move on to the next questions which comes from Harry Millard in Southland, Alabama. And Harry would like to know about the pro-China politicians and media figures in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Why are they speaking the way they're speaking? Dennis first and Hong Kong first, then Taiwan? Sorry, what do you mean by the way they're speaking? I didn't get that. On the basis of what you've been, you distinguished panelists been saying, why should anybody in Hong Kong or in Taiwan be speaking in favor of the Chinese government? Well, you know, there are a lot of interests in Hong Kong. I think there's a lot of parallel here between Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are people who welcome a lot of money coming from the mainland, especially the business. If you're a property developer, you would welcome that. Your prices are, the property keep going up. Nevermind that ordinary people cannot afford a house in Hong Kong. And the situation as Shelley pointed out is that at some point, there's so much Chinese money going to Taiwan that is driving real estate prices up. If you happen to own them, yeah, good news for you. But if you don't, then you are stuck in the bottom of the ladder. So I think there are opposing interests, but I think the Taiwanese business sector is facing a really interesting or hard scenario. I read that the Far Eastern group of Taiwan was fine. Was it three million renminbi or more for supporting the DPP in the Taiwanese election? Now, I think this is a very good example of the way things will develop going forward. I think it will be harder and harder for international businesses and also business in Taiwan to operate or straddle between both sides of the aisle. They used to do it with Great East, but now what we're seeing is that almost like a decoupling of the laws and the regulations, that will make it harder and harder for international business to comply with international laws and at the same time comply with PRC laws. That will force them to take a stance on are you with us or are you against us? I think that is what we're gonna see happening and more and more business will fall into this trap. To cite another example, Sony China was fine one million renminbi for launching a product on the 7th of July, which happens to be the date of the Mako Polo Bridge incident in 1937. I mean, that's happening. I know, how can that be the case? But that is the kind of business environment you're dealing with. Soho was fine, 15 million renminbi for electricity charges. And the Soho is because their owner is now in the United States and they are being targeted that way. So, and then DD Chu Xing was punished for having an IPO in New York and now has to rewind that and go back home. So, that is I think what businesses will face, the dilemma they will face going forward. Okay, Junyi, you would like to come in on Taiwan? Yes, coming on Taiwan. Taiwan is a democracy in the democracy there will be a divide in the society and let's to start the point to answer the question that they will have the media's pro-China, pro-Taiwan. So, that is the situation in Taiwan that there have been for long, not just now, more of the pan-blue media which the bosses are more supporting of China and pan-green media, both the newspaper, television, cable television, it is not a news, it is existing situation for since the lift of the freedom of the speech actually in 1987, so the divide of the media scenario has always existed in Taiwan, but there's something new in a sense. And also what Daniel, Dennis mentioned about the ban of the pan-green media or pan-green group actually that also of the pan-green investors in China was banned or being punished by the Chinese government that is evergreen before. It also hasn't been a new situation, has always been like that, but what is a bit new is the Taiwanese investors who actually came back to Taiwan, who was in China, invested in this one-one group, met a big amount of money, returned to Taiwan, bought media. And the media he tried to buy, he did buy newspaper, cable television cable, channel and also the whole operation system of media. That was how Taiwanese society launched the anti-monopoly media movements in the mid-2010, 2015, 2014, 15 and maybe wrong of the date. But what I wanted to say is the new thing was the poor Taiwanese, poor China Taiwanese investor returned to Taiwan by media and support China relentlessly. The one-one group, this Mr. Tsai bought the China Times and declared there was no Tiananmen Square, it was a mistake. So what happened in Taiwan? The society also against very much of this kind of the, I would say lie, and again to protest of the one-one group. And it also happened of the very recent CTI TV, led was of the same Taiwanese investor Mr. Tsai, he invested, he bought it and very much pro-China and produced a lot of the untrue report on the television, especially to support this Mr. Han Guo Yu, the presidential candidates. CTI TV's broadcasting lessons was revoked in 2020 November, so can no longer operate as a TV channel. It wasn't really because of the pro-China because again, Taiwan is a free society democracy. The media can be pro-China, can be pro-Taiwan, government shouldn't intervene. The CTI TV's broadcasting lessons revoked it was because of the untrue news report, not because of the political identity. Sorry, Shelly. Okay, Shelly, you happy to live, oh yes, please do come in, you're muted. Sorry, it's absolutely true, everything that Junie and Dennis are saying, but I think it's important also to note that it doesn't really work very well though. And again, that's part of I think the desperation of the PRC in confronting Taiwan and Hong Kong. So when the so-called red media began to appear in Taiwan's media outlets speaking really for the PRC, people react very negatively to that. And I think it does have an effect because that red media also says a lot of things that are aimed at domestic politics within Taiwan and they have more credibility and they do introduce confusion, disinformation and so on. So it's not that they don't matter, it's not that they're not harmful, but they are not causing Taiwanese people to become more pro-Beijing, but they do cause Taiwanese people to be maybe more cautious. And similarly, the sanctions against business that Dennis was talking about, I think that the PRC was quite successful early on in tamping down the political activity of pro-DPP business leaders. But this most recent case, it's a company that's basically totally mainstream. It donates to both the DPP and the KMT. It's not a green party, it's not a company that has been associated with DPP politics. So by going after them, it's kind of the message is we don't care whether you're our friends or our enemies. If you're in Taiwan, you are available to us as a pressure point. And I think that that's a really different message from, okay, you said something pro-Cheng Shui Bien, so I'm gonna mash you down. Now it's like, we just need a target. So you're a big Taiwanese company, you're the target. And that's not effective in the same way. Well, thank you very much to all of you. We have 37 different questions, some of them multiple questions in the Q&A box. I do apologize to many of you who have put a question in the Q&A box that I have not been able to pick and push to our panelists. But nonetheless, let me thank our panelists for a very engaging and insightful conversations on the important subjects of both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Regrettably, I do have to draw these webinars to a close as we have reached the time we have allocated for it. And I look forward to seeing some of you in some of our other regular seminars or webinars held by the Soviet China Institute on Mondays. With that, thank you and goodbye. And before I sign off, just let me remind those of you who have sent questions that all your questions will be saved and will be sent on to our panelists. So they will see all the questions and comments in the Q&A box. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Thank you Steve. Thank you all. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye.