TAIPEI – On the walls of Protection Umbrella, a restaurant in Taipei, the posters show protesters in gas masks and helmets fighting the police in Hong Kong.
The restaurant opened in April to provide jobs for protesters who fled to Taiwan to escape arrest during protests last year in the former British colony.
Now that Beijing has enacted a national security law for Hong Kong, announcing significant changes in the territory’s governance, the exodus is expected to escalate.
The law will allow Beijing to impose severe penalties on anyone found guilty of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with outside forces to threaten national security. He could see the Chinese government sending its own law enforcement officers.
As of 10 pm Thursday Beijing time, the police had arrested some 370 people, including six men and four women, on suspicion of violating the National Security Law. Others were arrested for crimes such as illegal gathering, disorderly conduct in a public place, furious driving, and possession of an offensive weapon. “
At the Protection Umbrella restaurant, concern about possible crackdown in Hong Kong is deep.
Diners are mostly Hong Kong people who speak Cantonese rather than Mandarin. And the challenges facing their homeland are never far from their minds.
“The Chinese Communist Party should honor the Sino-British Joint Declaration if they want to be a player in the international community,” said Winnie Ho, who moved to Taiwan in 2014 after an earlier wave of anti-government protests called the Umbrella Movement, after the which restaurant is named.
Under the treaty reached between China and the United Kingdom on how Hong Kong should be governed after its surrender in 1997, Beijing had promised that the territory would enjoy significant autonomy, and that rights and freedoms would be protected by law.
But Beijing’s actions in recent years, including the shortlist of candidates for chief executive, had already caused some residents to fear that Hong Kong’s freedoms were being eroded.
“I am quite pessimistic. … If people can leave, they should, ”said Betty Ng who, along with her husband, obtained residence in Taiwan by investing in a B&B in eastern Taitung County, eastern Taiwan.
“We got used to what we had before. We had freedom of expression, we could criticize and comment on anything we didn’t like, but now it seems that he has to discipline himself. “
Such fears have prompted an increasing number of Hong Kong residents to move elsewhere, and Taiwan is among the best options.
It is seen as a safe haven, popular also because of its proximity, as well as its similar language and culture. Despite Beijing seeing the island and the mainland as part of a country that will one day be reunited, Taiwan has been governed separately for more than a century, including as a vibrant democracy in recent decades.
Last year, 5,858 Hong Kong people obtained residence permits here, an increase of 41 percent over the previous year, according to statistics from the Taiwan Interior Ministry.
Some of the most active protesters will risk arrest under the new law, said the Rev. Huang Chun-sheng at the Chi-lam Presbyterian Church in Taipei. It has helped more than 200 Hong Kong protesters settle here in the past few months.
“Our friends in Hong Kong tell us that the first targets for arrest include human rights workers, front-line protesters and even church officials who kindly offered the church for protesters to rest,” he said.
“Under the security law, activities, protests and freedom of expression will be limited,” he said, “so Hong Kong will become a Chinese city.”
More Hong Kong people are expected to migrate abroad. On the first day the law went into effect on Wednesday, the Hong Kong government demonstrated that it fully intended to administer it; Police made their first 10 arrests related to prohibited violations.
Kolas Yotaka, a spokesman for the Taiwanese presidential office, says the government will provide “necessary assistance” to “Hong Kong and Macao residents whose security and freedom are immediately threatened for political reasons,” quoting the writing of an article in a Taiwanese law on this matter.
“The new office … will help evaluate and process applications more efficiently on a case-by-case basis,” he said. The Office of Services and Exchanges will be called.
But not everyone fears the National Security Law and wants to leave. Some like Lydia Lee are even happy to see the law imposed.
“I’m not worried. I think if we don’t cause trouble, we’ll be fine,” said Lee. “During the protests, it was horrible, I didn’t dare go out. My friends couldn’t go to work because protesters had blocked the roads. They said that they were fighting for their freedom, but what about our freedom? … Now that the law has been adopted, these people will not dare to cause chaos. “
Like many people in Hong Kong before the delivery of the territory, Lee and her husband obtained Canadian passports, but decided to stay in Hong Kong.
“We thought it would be really bad, but we don’t feel that our freedoms have been suppressed after delivery,” said Lee.
Others blame protesters for making matters worse by giving Beijing the perfect reason to impose the new law.
They believe that it is impossible to compel the Chinese government to accept democracy overnight or even in a few decades, but that over time, peaceful appeals, the growing awareness of the Chinese people about universal rights and reforms China’s policies, the goal can finally be achieved.
