Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong has played an important role in how Taiwanese view China, with opinion polls suggesting more people now support the self-ruled island becoming formally independent from the mainland.
Taipei, Taiwan In just five years, Lin Fei-fan went from charging into Taiwan's legislature and occupying the building with hundreds of students to a senior job for the island's ruling party.
But his story could have been very different if he lived in Hong Kong, where student activists once brought the financial hub to a standstill as they took to the streets to demand democracy and freedoms.Lin says he could only watch from afar as nearly all pro-democracy figures in nearby Hong Kong, about 800 kilometers southwest of Taipei were arrested or fled overseas in the year since Beijing imposed a controversial national security law in response to mass pro-democracy protests in the city.
Taiwan holds ceremony for advanced F-16V fighter jets 02:11Economic interdependence But despite rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait in recent years, both Beijing and Taipei cannot afford to completely cut ties.Last year, mainland China was Taiwan's largest trading partner and accounted for 26% of the island's total trade volume, according to Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Memories of the 'Sunflower Movement' 01:24Lin, then a graduate student at National Taiwan University, subsequently led the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which successfully forced Ma's government to scrap the trade deal. The three-week long protest saw student activists occupy Taiwan's legislative building in the island's largest demonstrations in decades.Today, Lin regularly advises President Tsai on key policies.
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