Taiwan Nixes China's 'One Country Two Systems' Offer, Cites HK Abuses

Taiwan rejects the "one country, two systems" model proposed by Beijing in a white paper published this week, the self-ruled island's foreign ministry said on Thursday, August 11, 2022, Sarah Wu reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Only Taiwan's people can decide its future, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou told a news conference in Taipei.

Only Taiwan's people can decide its future, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou told a news conference in Taipei.

Apparently, the Taiwanese know that China’s pledge to retain Taipei’s political structure as a big joke since it dismissed the Hong Kong handover treaty signed in 1997 that guaranteed democracy in the former Crown Colony for 50 years. Beijing regards the accord as nothing but a “piece of paper.”

China was using US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei as an "excuse to create a new normality to intimidate Taiwan's people," Ou argued, and Beijing has threatened to conduct more naval and aerial drills around the island, thus choking maritime trade and raising tensions not only in the Taiwan Strait but also in the waters bordering the Philippines.

Surveys conducted since 1992 had consistently shown that the Taiwanese do not regard themselves as Chinese or even as majority Han Chinese which comprises about 90% of the population in the mainland.

The latest survey conducted by independent polling firms and the National Chengchi University showed only 2% of the Taiwanese regard themselves as Chinese, down from 25% in 1992.

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