200 march in Taipei to mark 2019 Hong Kong protest, warn against China

Taipei, June 13 (CNA) Around 200 people, many of them Hongkongers living in Taiwan, marched in Taipei on Thursday to mark the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy movement and urge people in Taiwan to recognize the growing threat from China.

The march, organized by Hong Kong Outlanders and several other civic groups in Taiwan, began at 7 p.m. in Ximending and reached Liberty Square about an hour later, drawing a crowd of roughly 200 participants, according to organizers.

Participants held placards bearing slogans such as "No CCP" and "Free Hong Kong," and chanted in Cantonese, Mandarin and English, including the rallying cry, "Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong."

That same phrase was a widely used chant in Hong Kong in 2019, when a proposed extradition bill backed by the government sparked months of mass protests, known as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement (Anti-ELAB Movement), across the city.

On June 12, 2019, thousands of protesters surrounded the Legislative Council Complex to oppose the proposed bill, which many feared would erode the city's judicial independence.

Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets -- an escalation that many see as a turning point in the Anti-ELAB Movement, which later expanded to include broader pro-democracy demands.

Following months of protests that made global headlines, the movement quieted down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and China's tightening grip on the city after the enactment of the Hong Kong national security law on June 30, 2020.

Sky Fung (馮詔天), secretary-general of Hong Kong Outlanders, told reporters that Taiwanese people should take the threat from China seriously, warning that China's ambitions will not stop.

Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy before its handover to China, but it has now largely fallen under Beijing's control, and Fung said it is "clear" that Taiwan is China's next target, citing Beijing's increasingly aggressive rhetoric on the issue.

He hopes Taiwanese can learn from Hong Kong's experience, develop a better understanding of China, and prevent it from succeeding in its attempts to bring Taiwan under its control.

With that warning in mind, Fung said he hoped the march could serve as a reminder for people in Taiwan of what happened to Hong Kong.

He said many Hongkongers once believed peaceful and non-violent demonstrations could make their voices heard by the government.

In 2019, however, even when 1 million or 2 million people took to the streets, the government remained unmoved, he said, and Hongkongers now realize that the government not only ignored public demands but also used police violence against ordinary citizens.

"That was when many Hongkongers finally understood that Hong Kong's future should be decided by Hongkongers themselves," he said.