On July 1, Taipei opened the new Taiwan Hong Kong Service Exchange Office to facilitate large-scale migration of Hongkongers to the island. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council minister, Chen Ming-tong, described the move as “not only a statement on Taiwan’s support to Hong Kong’s democracy and freedom but also highlights our determination to care for Hong Kong people.” In response, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, described the island nation’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, as a “black hand” which seeks to destabilize Hong Kong. She said “What the DPP authorities said was an undisguised distortion of facts, which served only to reveal its vicious intention to mess up Hong Kong and seek independence for Taiwan,” warning the new Chinese security law would “surely cut off the ‘black hands’ of the DPP trying to mess up Hong Kong.” She added “Any person or force that attempts to undermine China’s national sovereignty, security, development interests, and the prosperity and stability of [Hong Kong] will … suffer the consequences.” Tian Feilong, a Chinese academic specializing on Taiwan, in an interview with the New York Times praised the new Chinese law for “cut[ting] off all the links of confluence between Hong Kong independence and Taiwan independence.” He asserted that Taiwan is the next major priority for Chinese President Xi Jinping: “The weight of the Taiwan problem in his heart, the urgency to solve it and the sense of mission will be even stronger.”
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