There is only one exception in the media coverage. The China Times – whose owners famously sympathise with Beijing – barely mentioned the Hong Kong protests at all. For most Taiwanese, such self-censorship is just another indicator of the ideological obedience expected by the Communist Party of China. [...]
With the Democratic Progressive Party currently in power, the political options now are more often expressed as a choice between the uneasy status quo and a move towards outright independence, despite the risk that might entail invasion by the People’s Republic. The older generation generally prefers the former and younger people the latter. [...]
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party must have known this, and yet they pressed on with moves to erode Hong Kong’s special status. Above all things, Beijing seems to fear disintegration; the ruling party is concerned that tolerating local diversity could unravel the country. According to Chi-Ting Tsai, Executive Director of the Centre for China Studies at the National Taiwan University: “One of the greatest fears among the Chinese leadership is fragmentation. There’s a concern that they can’t control what goes on in the provinces.” [...]
In April 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced a ruling that 80% of the country’s citizens must speak the national language – Mandarin Chinese – by 2020. The Ministry’s ruling was an admission that almost a third of the population, around 400 million people, do not speak the nominally ‘national’ language. Instead, they speak regional ‘topolects’ – Cantonese, Shanghainese and others – that are mutually unintelligible. This diversity threatens the homogenisers. The campaign to impose Mandarin nationwide has been stepped up.
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