Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) on Thursday said that the government had received asylum applications from at least 200 Hong Kongers as Beijing seeks to ram through a national security bill for the territory.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said that there is no need to introduce refugee legislation to offer Hong Kongers asylum, while Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) has said the Act Governing Relations With Hong Kong and Macau (香港澳門關係條例) does not need to be amended to deal with such requests.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in her inaugural address on May 20 firmly said: “We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo.”

The Chinese government was not too happy, and later that day, an opinion piece on the Web site of China’s state broadcaster China Central Television said: “While Tsai’s first inaugural address four years ago was read by Beijing as an ‘unfinished answer sheet,’ the one she presented this time was even more below-par.”