Recognize the monument pictured above?
Its the entrance to Liberty Square in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District, and it acts as a reminder of the development of democracy in Taiwan. In fact, the country recently elected a female President, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, to be its leader.
Let’s face it, no democracy is perfect. However, what I think a lot of North American people don’t realize (my former self included) is that Taiwan is in fact a democratic country, separate from its communist neighbour China.
Recently, I visited Hong Kong, a state that in 1997 was released by the UK back to China. I absolutely adored my time on the skyscraper island as I was able to experience the perfect balance of city and nature type adventures.
(Stay tuned for an article on my favourite excursion)
During my time in Hong Kong I noticed some differences between it and Taipei, Taiwan:
- The Subway system in Hong Kong is referred to as MTR (Mass Transit Railway opened 1979), but Taipei took a hipster approach, and named their’s MRT (short for Taipei Rapid Metro opened in 1997).
- Both have separate versions of delicious tea, HK’s being Lai Cha Tea and Taiwan’s being Pearl Milk Tea.
- Hong Kong drives on the left side of the street and Taiwan the right.
- In Hong Kong the majority speak Cantonese, while in Taiwan the majority speak Mandarin.
Yet similar to Taipei, the mainland of Hong Kong is beaming with extremely impressive infrastructure, amazing shopping, and delicious restaurants. Taiwan and Hong Kong are both accented by beautiful mountains and smaller islands.
Hong Kong is an overall more international city, that actually just had an important political election.
Politics. Its the topic that isolates family members, ruins friendships, and divides nations. It’s a complicated subject to say the least, and one that I do not pretend to know much about, especially in regards to a country that I just began living in.
But what I do know is that there are some important differences between Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s current political structures and policies.
Currently, Taiwan enjoys a separate identity and constitution from the Republic of China. They use a first past the post electoral system, and as proven in the past election, the majority of citizens do not wish to unite with mainland China.
Although Hong Kong exercises autonomy, their situation is a little more complicated with a policy of “one country, two systems” in accordance with mainland China.
Since 2014, where young Hong Konger’s held mass street protests demanding universal suffrage (the right for all citizens to vote), the path to political independence from China is starting to become more clear, as in its most recent semi-democratic election (to determine Hong Kong’s Legislative Council) one elected political party’s leader is 23 years old.
However in response the Chinese government has announced that Hong Kong must accept Beijing’s control and oversight, their basic message being that ultimately they hold power and jurisdiction over Hong Kong.
Yet with voter turn out rising 5% in this past election and younger citizens with democratic ideals becoming involved in the countries politics, there is definitely hope that one day, despite the constraint of “one country, two systems” Hong Kong will be able to establish a true independent democracy, similar to that of Taiwan’s.
Things are about to get interesting: the millennials have spoken, attitudes are changing, and just like the citizens of Taiwan, Hong Konger’s have demanded their rights.
Okay people now here get information:
(^to the tune of Beyoncé’s formation, obviously)
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/31/asia/hong-kong-legislative-council-explainer/
http://english.metro.taipei/ct.asp?xItem=1315948&ctNode=70209&mp=122036
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-election-timeline-idUSTRE7BC0E320111213
http://time.com/4478978/hong-kong-legislative-council-election-legco/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Square_(Taipei)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_general_election,_2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Democratization
Blue Eyes in Taiwan 