Taiwan Deports 2 Chinese Nationals for Harassing Pro-Hong Kong Protesters

A file photo of Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan. Sam Yeh /AFP via Getty Images

Taiwan has deported two Chinese nationals accused of harassing a group of pro-Hong Kong protesters on Oct. 1, which was the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) taking power.

“The government will take immediate and strict action against any mainland Chinese who come to Taiwan and engage in illegal or irregular behavior that endangers our national security and social stability,” the Taiwanese government stated on Oct. 3.

Hong Kong Outlanders stated that it had arranged a small protest on Oct. 1 in Taiwan’s capital city of Taipei, where group members were then verbally harassed and pushed around by a group of Chinese people.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council stated that two Chinese nationals, a couple, who were involved in the incident have been deported and had their entry permits revoked. They had applied to enter Taiwan in late September to visit a relative, whom officials said had already left Taiwan to return to China in July, according to local media.

Immigration officials took the couple to the Taoyuan International Airport, and they boarded a plane to China before noon on Oct. 3.

Taiwan National Immigration Agency officials said the couple knew they were violating temporary entry permit rules, and the Mainland Affairs Council said the couple was “abusing” the entry permit system and that it would review future applications more strictly.

Taiwan is home to a large Hong Kong community, as the passing of a draconian national security law in Hong Kong saw an exodus of pro-democracy residents. The law—pushed through by the CCP—was met with international condemnation, as it mirrors the vaguely worded laws in China that are used to criminalize dissent, such as prohibiting “political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.”

For years following Hong Kong’s handover to China by Britain in 1997, the China–Hong Kong relationship was understood to be “one country, two systems,” where Hong Kong would retain its legal and political systems and freedom of expression that are not found in China. Critics of the new national security law say the law has ended that.

Taiwan itself faces an increasingly tense relationship with the CCP, which sees Taiwan as its territory to be reunified, by force if necessary. The CCP has never ruled Taiwan, which has its own democratic system of governance.

On Oct. 1, CCP leader Xi Jinping repeated calls to “achieve the complete reunification of the motherland,” naming Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.