Taiwan rejects 'Hong Kong formula'

After Hong Kong's return to China, Beijing is now looking to reunify with Macau, and then Taiwan. But Taipei is firm in saying it is no Hong Kong. Antoaneta Bezlova and Ron Corben report for Inter Press Service.

BEIJING/TAIPEI: For more than 900 days until the stroke of midnight on June 30, the huge clock on Tiananmen Square ticked out with electronic precision the remaining seconds left till Hong Kong's return to China.

With the handover completed, the giant digital clock is to become a museum piece displayed at the foot of a portion of the Great Wall, where it will stand as a symbol of China's long journey toward reunification with Hong Kong.

This decision, made by Chinese officials, reflects the wave of nationalist pride running through a country proudly celebrating the return of Hong Kong -- and looking toward reunification with Macau and eventually, Taiwan.

To the Chinese, the handover cleanses a historical slate marred by a century and a half of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers like Britain, which got Hong Kong after defeating the crumbling Qing dynasty in the Opium War in the 19th century.

"We have never forgotten the shame of the Qing dynasty," recalled Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Hong Kong, hours after ceremonies marking the end of Britain's 156-year rule there.

Since then, he said, the Chinese have been working to "fight for the vindication of its sovereignty". After all, Jiang added, "the people of the mainland share the same blood with the people of Hong Kong".

With Hong Kong back in its fold, China is turning its attention to the return of Portuguese-ruled Macau in 1999, and the progress of talks with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a wayward province.

On the eve of Chinese rule over Hong Kong, the Communist Party flagship People's Daily said China now has to find a way not only to make the "one country, two systems" formula work in Hong Kong, but to "go on to settle the Macau and Taiwan issues in line with the same principles".

The "one country, two systems" principle was designed originally for settling the "Taiwan question" -- the term Beijing uses to refer to future reunification with the island that lies south of the mainland.

But the concept, decided upon by China's late patriarch Deng Xiaoping, has been put in practice first in Hong Kong, which under a 1984 accord between Britain and China will retain its capitalist character for the next 50 years.

And as Macau moves toward its reversion to Chinese rule, everyone is closely watching how the Hong Kong experiment will work out.

Macau, which lies some 65 kms west of Hong Kong, has been recognized by China as a Portuguese colony since 1887. In 1987, China and Portugal reached agreement on terms for Macau's return to Beijing.

As for Taiwan, Chinese officials are saying that if the Taiwanese take the olive branch extended by Beijing, then policies to be adopted for solving the "Taiwan question" may even be more lenient than those applied to Hong Kong. This olive branch is Jiang's eight-point proposal for reunification with Taiwan, put forward in 1995.

Getting back Taiwan, which was the refuge of Nationalist Chinese forces after their defeat by the communists on the mainland in 1949, is seen as the final step in realizing a unified China.

But many Taiwanese are not keen on being lumped together with Hong Kong, saying the two peoples have different roots, democratic struggles and records of self-governance.

"China is saying that this time it is Hong Kong, next time it is Taiwan's turn. We like the world to know that Taiwan is no Hong Kong," said Peng Ming-Min, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's candidate in the 1996 presidential election.

"Our geography is different, our history is different, our politics different. So there is absolutely no similarity between the two countries, the two places, Hong Kong and Taiwan," he told journalists in Taipei.

The people of Taiwan and Hong Kong may both be ethnic Chinese, but the Taiwanese say they have deeper roots as a nation. They say more than 85 percent of Taiwan's population are descendants of migrants who left China centuries ago. Only 15 percent of its population consist of Chinese who fled the mainland after the communist victory in 1949.

In contrast, one-third of Hong Kong's more than six million people was born in China, and a large part of its population are descendants of migrants who came to the territory only in the last 50 years.

Despite the fact that most nations recognize only one China and view Taiwan as an economic entity instead of a country, many analysts say a de facto nation has emerged in the last 50 years. Taiwan has in fact been trying to obtain a seat in the United Nations. But there is concern that too strident calls for self- rule could trigger a nasty response from China.

Time and again, China has warned it will not tolerate a declaration of independence by Taiwan. In the lead-up to last year's presidential polls, Beijing carried out a series of military exercises in the straits separating it from Taiwan.

Taiwan was colonized by the Spanish and the Dutch, then fell under Chinese rule in 1683, followed by local revolts against the Qing dynasty's rule in the next 200 years.

After its defeat at Japan's hands, China in 1895 ceded Taiwan in perpetuity to Japan, which however had to turn the island over to Allied powers after the Pacific War. The anti-communist Kuomintang took control of Taiwan after it was expelled from the mainland in 1949.

Still, Tunghai University professor Tung Yao says it is time the Taiwanese people "stand up for ourselves". He added: "We imagine we can proclaim independence in the near future. We say we are an independent country. No one understands why there are two Chinas."

Kao Koong-Lian, vice chair of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, said Taiwan cannot accept the Hong Kong formula because it would "make Taipei a local government under Beijing".

In Beijing, history was on many people's lips, especially on the first day of Chinese rule over Hong Kong. The People's Daily carried an editorial calling the handover "a centennial event for the Chinese nation".

"The return of Hong Kong is an excellent consolation to the martyrs and ancient sages who stuck out their necks and shed their warm blood for the cause of revitalizing China," former Culture Minister Wang Meng said.

Apparently, the message is the Communist Party has been crucial to the realization of the mainland's long-time dream of getting back Hong Kong. "It is only under the leadership of the Communist Party of China that the century-old dream has been materialized step by step," noted the People's Daily.

Liu Shuyong, a fellow at the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, notes that neither the government of Northern Warlords that ruled the country between 1912 and 1927, nor the Kuomintang had, the power to take Hong Kong back from the British.

"China was too weak that time," Liu said. "The reason that Hong Kong has come back to the mainland now is that we grew stronger under the rule of the Communist Party."

Indeed, as both Jiang and China-appointed executive Tung Chee- Hwa said in their speeches at the handover, Deng played an indispensable role in making possible Hong Kong's return.

"Deng Xiaoping is really great," said a street peddler here. "He dared to stand up to the British and ask for the return of Hong Kong."

-- IPS