Taiwan tells visiting US official China seeks to turn it into next HK

TIL Desk/World/Taipei/ Taiwan faces an increasingly difficult position as China pressures the democratic island to accept conditions that would turn it into the next Hong Kong, its top diplomat told visiting US Health Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday.

Azar arrived in Taiwan on Sunday as the highest-level US official to visit in four decades, a trip condemned by China which claims the island as its own. Chinese fighter jets on Monday briefly crossed the median line of the sensitive Taiwan Strait, and were tracked by Taiwanese anti-aircraft missiles, part of what Taipei sees as a pattern of harassment by Beijing.

Azar’s trip to Taiwan has also coincided with a further crackdown in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, where on Monday police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai under a tough new national security law. “Our life has become increasingly difficult as China continues to pressure Taiwan into accepting its political conditions, conditions that will turn Taiwan into the next Hong Kong,” Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said at a joint media appearance with Azar in Taipei.