Thread by @WilliamYang120

In an interview on @dwnews Asia, #Taiwan foreign minister (@MOFA_Taiwan) Joseph Wu told me that #HongKong people are freedom fighters and what has been happening in #HK is a real tragedy. He also warns the world about #China's expansionism.

dw.com/en/dw-news-asi…

"We try to give more of support to those freedom fighters in #HK. And we continue to urge the Hong Kong government to adopt free election and to ensure freedom, especially freedom of speech and freedom of media, so that Hong Kong can stand as a symbol of freedom in East Asia."

"But it's very unfortunate that the Chinese government imposed national security on Hong Kong and other that, you know, we saw the elections scheduled later this year has been postponed for one year."

"The rights of the Hong Kong people has been taken away by the Chinese government, the last bastion of freedom of press, the Hong Kong Apple Daily has been under assault by the Chinese authority."

"There are politicians, especially on the Democratic side, that are being disqualified by the Chinese authorities or by Hong Kong authority, and that is a gross violation of political rights in #HongKong."

"So this whole situation in Hong Kong is really a tragedy."

Joseph Wu on #China's expansionism: "if you look at China's expansionism in the last several years, I think it's not only about China's expansion, their expansion, their ambition to occupy territorial waters or territories in this region."

" I think they are also interested in changing the international rules of the game. They are trying to export the authoritarian international order while the democracies are following the rule based international order."

"And if China succeeds in taking Taiwan over -- I think the rest of the world, especially for democracies, is going to feel the heat. China is expanding outward. Taiwan happens to be on the front line."

"And we understand our own responsibilities. Our own responsibility. It's not just Taiwan sovereignty or Taiwan's on defense or Taiwan's own economy.

Our responsibility is to safeguard the democratic way of life -- that freedom and democracy is not affected by the Chinese expansionism."

Here are my comments on the impact of the situation in #HongKong on #Taiwan: "Wu clearly pointed out in the interview that the few things that can prevent #Taiwan from falling into #HongKong's situation is its sovereignty, its democratic system, which ensures that ...

... the government in #Taiwan is always democratically elected by Taiwanese people. That is very much aligned with what the @iingwen's administration has been strengthening over the last few years, which is that the democratic value is playing an important role ...

... for #Taiwan to continue to strengthen its independence from any sort of interference or political impact from #China. Over the last few elections, Taiwanese voters have been exercising their democratic rights in a different way.

"Wu also pointed out in the interview that #Taiwan is only hoping that advanced countries like the US will continue to approve military sales to #Taiwan in order to help the island to further strengthen its self-defense capability. Taiwan is not counting on foreign powers to ...

... actually militarily intervene. At the end of the day, they think the responsibility to defend #Taiwan rests with the Taiwanese military and Taiwanese people."