Hong Kong is set to become the next Xinjiang. “Keep Xinjiang and destroy Uyghurs” is the present tense; “Keep Hong Kong but not its people” is in the future perfect tense. The whole world is witnessing the tragedy of cultural extinction.

Chris Patten, last Governor of Hong Kong, criticized the Chinese Communist Party for breaking the promise of “one country, two systems”. He said it proved once again to the world that “the CCP cannot be trusted at all.” Such attack has become a global consensus. The CCP’s evil move is foreshadowing its own death for its unjust acts.

When asked about Hong Kong’s electoral reform, Hong Kong-born former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said “one country, two systems”, which was first proposed by late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982, has officially become a thing of the past after it was declared “dead” by the CCP. Following the death of “one country, two systems”, “death of Hong Kong” has also entered its final phase of the end of democracy.

On March 11, the CCP passed legislation on Hong Kong’s electoral system, requiring all candidates running for public office be vetted by the CCP’s “screening committee”. Mr. Ma said, the move has certified the death of “one country, two systems”. Has the “1992 consensus” embraced by Ma come to an end, too? “No,” replied Ma, who said they are two different things. In fact, he disregarded the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping in his 2019 speech had turned the “1992 consensus” and “one country, two systems” scenario for Taiwan into a “two-headed snake”. Given the death of “one country, two systems”, how can “1992 consensus” survive?

Ma’s misjudgment will further undermine KMT’s “existence value” in Taiwan. What’s even worse is that the largest opposition party is heading for collapse as it is moving farther away from the island’s public and tend to confuse fantasy with reality, known as “political schizophrenia”. “One never shed a tear until one sees the coffin” is no longer good enough to describe KMT’s stupidity. It knows quite well that its voters are in Taiwan, not in China, and the CCP does not have a right to cast a vote. Moreover, the polls in major democracies around the world show that the anti-China sentiment is as high as 70-80%, and Taiwan is no exception. But KMT remains stuck in the trap of “afraid of upsetting the CCP”. Clinging to the “1992 consensus” is the fatal cause of the syndrome.

In 2018, voters gave KMT a chance, helping it win a landslide victory in local elections; yet in the presidential election two years later, the party suffered a devastating defeat. In just two years, the political pendulum had swung away from KMT again. One of the reasons is that Xi’s “one country, two systems” scenario for Taiwan is too scary. The sudden rise of Han Kuo-yu also helped intensify DPP’s “sense of national annihilation”. The presidential vote showed Xi suffered a crushing loss. And Han was later ousted in a recall vote by Kaohsiung residents. Despite a range of crises, KMT has not learned a lesson from these failures.

KMT used to be proud that “it knew China best”. KMT members visited China. Ma and Xi shook hands in Singapore. Ironically, it now realized that DPP was right for “not trusting the CCP”. Ma said that “one country, two systems” is dead, acknowledging to a large extent that he failed to see through the CCP’s deceptive nature. Ma, deputy of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) in 2001, released political documents to dismiss the CCP’s framework of “one country, two systems”. It is clear he had declared the scam dead as early as two decades ago. Today, Ma is responding in such a slow and naïve manner that Taiwan people will not be fooled.

The “1992 consensus” is another scam, and late KMT Chairman Lee Teng-hui had unveiled its fallacy many times. It is unbelievable that Ma still refuses to take down this “toxic pacifier”.

Ma should take a look at what his clanmate Jack Ma has been through. In a recent report by Wall Street Journal, China antitrust regulators are mulling the imposition of a record fine of over US$975 million on Alibaba. They have also asked the e-Commerce giant to disassociate from its founder Jack Ma. Jack Ma has been singled out by the Chinese government for criticizing the Chinese financial regulatory system at a conference at the end of last year. His remarks led to the sudden halt of his Ant Group IPO. Beijing also asked Ant to restructure, saying it is “posing a threat to the financial system”. In fact, there is no shortage of consensuses in various forms between Ma and the CCP, but the CCP has no trouble finding an excuse to purge dissidents. With great power in its hand, the CCP’s evil has no limit.

Ma Ying-jeou has declared the death of “one country, two systems” for Hong Kong. But what does he plan to do for his birthplace? He left a lot of questions unanswered. “Keep Hong Kong, but not its people” foretells a hellish future for the city. And the death of “one country, two systems” is just a piece of cake.

Many of the pro-democracy Hong Kongers have close ties with Taiwan. They have a connection with the Green camp. Many of Ma’s key advisors during his eight-year presidency had links with Hong Kong, too. How can the Blue camp do nothing to “save Hong Kong from the CCP”, to save “Hong Kong martyrs”? How can these “Ma Ying-jeous” do nothing and have a good night’s sleep? A living “apocalypse” is unfolding before our eyes.

(Yang Sen-hong, President of Taiwan Association for China Human Rights)

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