Hong Kong and Taiwan Are Bonding Over China
TAIPEI—When Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping signed the agreement that would hand control of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, East Asia was a vastly different place than it is today.
The year was 1984: China was in the early days of its economic rise and was experiencing one of its most politically free periods under Communist rule; Hong Kong was the booming financial hub and crown jewel of what remained of the British Empire; and then there was Taiwan, which was nearing the end of nearly four decades of brutal martial law. At the time, if you had wagered on which of those places would be the freest 35 years later, Taiwan would have had long odds.
Since then, China has become the world’s second-largest economy and a major military power while still spending more on domestic security, including that perhaps hold up to 2 million Muslims in Xinjiang. Hong Kong’s relevance to China as an entrepôt—useful in the initial years following the handover—has diminished greatly, and the territory has been gripped by protests as Beijing has eroded long-held freedoms. Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party has vowed to bring under its control, democratized in the 1990s and has become the focus of China’s buildup.
