China | Politics in Hong Kong

The city that scares China

A new front opens in China’s struggle against separatism

|BEIJING AND HONG KONG

CHINA’S leaders wince at the merest hint of support for the separation of any part of their country from the “motherland”. Gun-toting police officers and armies of secret ones ensure that few dare openly to express support for the notion in Tibet and Xinjiang, traditionally restive regions in the west of the country. China’s rapid military modernisation in recent years has been aimed in part at deterring Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Communist Party, from making its de facto independence a formal one.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "The city that scares China"

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