China watches rooting out of democracy from Hong Kong
Taiwan must watch warily as China uproots democracy, inch by inch, from Hong Kong, extending its grip over the autonomous region. The removal of statues representing democracy and individual freedom from three universities is the latest step in this direction.
It began on December 23 in one of the island’s oldest universities, Hong Kong University, that houses one of the last remaining memorials to the victims of the bloody Chinese crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
The 26-foot-high Pillar of Shame by the Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt was quietly removed from the campus. The statue shows 50 piled up bodies “with anguish-ridden faces”. It was erected within the Haking Wong Building inside university in 1997.
The following day, Christmas Eve, when most stude