Taiwan representative office in Hong Kong withdraws staff amid row over ‘one China’ pledge
Taiwan’s representative office in Hong Kong has started to withdraw employees with soon-to-expire visas, as a row continues over a requirement for Taiwanese staff to sign a “one China” pledge.
Taiwanese staff at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong started to return home on Saturday morning, according to Lin Fei-fan, the deputy secretary-general of the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that only one Taiwanese staff member from the economics department, with a visa set to expire in July, remained in Hong Kong.
The office in Hong Kong had eight staff members from Taiwan before the withdrawal and is now set to continue its operations with only local staff.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement that due to the obstructions faced by its staff based in Hong Kong, there would be some adjustments to how the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office conducted its business. The office would continue essential operations and would ensure no interruptions to its services, the council added.
“We firmly reject the unreasonable political suppression that forces our staff to sign a one China affirmation,” the council’s statement said.
The requirement for Taiwanese staff applying for employment visas in Hong Kong to sign an affirmation that acknowledges Beijing’s claim to Taiwan was first reported in 2018.
In a Facebook post, Lin said that Taiwan would “of course not accept” the requirement, which he called a political prerequisite.
Bruce Lui, a journalism lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that the staff withdrawal would have limited effects on practical matters, such as tourism, study abroad programs and investment, but would have a bigger political impact.
The withdrawal showed that the “two systems” in Hong Kong and Macao no longer had flexibility under “one country,” Liu said, adding that he expected exchanges between Hong Kong and Taiwan to reduce as well.
In May, Hong Kong temporarily suspended operations at its representative office in Taiwan after accusing the self-ruled island of grossly interfering in its affairs on repeated occasions. At the time of that announcement, all Hong Kong staff members at the Taiwan office had already returned home.
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