For the past several months the authority in Taiwan has boasted of welcoming Hong Kong residents fleeing from Hong Kong. Most are said to be running from China’s “harsh rule” there and the consequent “loss of democracy”.

What are the details? Is this significant?

In the past, Taiwan received some Hong Kong emigrants. They were mostly investors or special cases. They were few in numbers.

This appeared about to change during Taiwan’s 2020 election campaign.

The incumbent leader Tsai Ing-wen was running for re-election and early on during the campaign it appeared she would fail. She sorely needed an issue to energize her base and win new supporters. Vilifying the Chinese mainland was that. Her challenger, Han Kuo-yu, was portrayed as “pro-China”; so was his party the Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist Party.

One specific issue resonated: the unrest in Hong Kong arising from objection to the now-withdrawn extradition bill, which protesters claimed would compromise the “one country, two systems” policy. Beijing also offered “one country, two systems” to Taiwan, which did not accept the offer. The policy had not worked in Hong Kong; it would not work in Taiwan, said Taiwan’s officials. 

So, Tsai and her party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), vilified and condemned the Chinese mainland as an election prop. It worked quite well. It also accorded well with the fact the US and the Western media were hostile toward Beijing over trade and a host of other issues. Then-US President Donald Trump assailed China on a number of fronts and Democrats joined him.

Subsequently, the Tsai administration did not cancel or even water down the “bad China” narrative and the refrain that Beijing would destroy Taiwan’s democracy. Emotional or hard campaign planks were normally dropped after election day, especially anti-Beijing rhetoric since Taiwan was very dependent on the Chinese mainland for a healthy economy. Not this time.

In mid-year 2020 the Taiwan authority established a “dedicated office” to help those Hongkongers leaving the city. Tsai, in fact, became the first leader to take such measures. But the numbers did not become meaningful — only 200 from the time of the protests began in June 2019 to well into 2020 and only 10 percent of those were granted visas.

Tsai feared what happened after she was elected in 2016. The next election, the conglomerate of local elections in 2018 (Taiwan’s so-called mid-term) turned out to be a debacle for her and a big win for the KMT. She had not been firm enough for her base on the issue of “Taiwan independence”. She misjudged the voters on a number of other issues. Taiwan’s voters arguably fancied a turnover of ruling parties (the pendulum theory of elections).

History seemed to be repeating. In late 2020 and early 2021, Tsai, her lieutenant and other top DPP leaders were seeing their public approval ratings, though still good, in decline for several months.

Tsai and the DPP were also aware of the fact that their 2020 election victory was quite fortuitous: The stars had aligned well for them. They won on timing and momentum, the economy at the moment and mistakes and poor campaigning by their opponents. In other words, they were lucky. They could not expect this to happen again in the 2022 election.

So, Taiwan welcomed Hong Kong “refugees” fleeing from what they called the “draconian” and the “anti-democratic” actions by Beijing.

In mid-year 2020 the Taiwan authority established a “dedicated office” to help those Hongkongers leaving the city. Tsai, in fact, became the first leader to take such measures.

But the numbers did not become meaningful — only 200 from the time of the protests began in June 2019 to well into 2020 and only 10 percent of those were granted visas.

Taiwan has since welcomed more “refugees” from Hong Kong; but the number is not significant; still in the hundreds.

The reasons for this are many.

Taiwan’s immigration law introduced in 1999 does not favor immigrants; in fact, it is quite hostile toward them. It was revised in 2006, but not in ways relevant to help Hong Kong emigrants. Taiwan has no asylum or refugee laws that apply. Anyway, Taipei has been slow walking the applicants from Hong Kong who want to stay in Taiwan.

Hongkongers are not fancied in Taiwan. Many do not speak decent Mandarin. Very few speak the local dialects (Fukienese or Hakka). They are viewed by many as rich folks that would inflate the housing market there to the disadvantage of locals. Finally, the Taiwan authority warned of “Chinese spies” among them. 

In contrast, Taiwan accommodates more than 700,000 foreign workers, the majority from Southeast Asia. They provide cheap labor, which Taiwan needs. The DPP regards them as possible future voters unlike “refugees” from Hong Kong. 

Thus Hongkongers who want to leave look to Canada and the UK where many already have citizenship or residency rights and the US and Australia where their chances of winning “asylum” or “refugee” status or will otherwise be accepted are infinitely better than Taiwan.

In short, Taiwan’s offers to Hong Kong residents seeking “refuge” or residency are not very significant.

The author is the Stanley J. Buckman Professor (emeritus) of International Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.