Taiwanese stage solidarity with Hong Kong protests

Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province that has to return to China one day, is following the events in Hong Kong with great interest. Taiwan has full democracy unlike Hong Kong’s more limited freedoms, and people here are very wary of what might happen to those freedoms under Chinese rule.Demonstrators sat down in front of Hong Kong’s trade office and made their feelings known to the Taipei representative.“I very much understand the student’s demands and I will inform the Hong Kong government,” said Hong Kong’s representative in Taiwan John Leung.As the protest deepens, China is taking more action against the internet and social media spreading news about the demonstrations, seeking to prevent dialogue between the island and the mainland.Some have noted this amounts to a total blackout, with blanket censorship from Beijing even blocking opinions backing the Chinese government making their way across the water.China is warning the world to back off and doing its utmost to ensure its own people hear as little as possible about what is happening, and that includes disrupting phone networks or file-sharing programmes like Instagram, and removing all references to the protests from search engines.