TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two days after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won a landslide victory with over 8.17 million votes, a Hong Kong illustrator posted a cartoon showing the stark contrast in policy towards democracy and young people on the part of Tsai and Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥).
On Monday (Jan. 13) Hong Kong illustrator SiuMingGraffiti (小銘塗鴉) uploaded a cartoon to his Facebook page titled "777 vs 8170 million." The number 777 signifies the number of delegates of Hong Kong's 1,194-member Election Committee, which is mainly comprised of pro-Beijing businessmen and members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The number 8.17 million refers to the 8,170,186 votes Tsai received in Taiwan's presidential election on Saturday (Jan. 11). Her total broke the record of 7.23 million votes set by KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008.
On the left side of the illustration, Lam frowns as she grabs a young man dressed in black with his hands bound and dressed in black, a color associated with Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters. Lam can be seen pointing a gun at the young person's chest, harkening to a recent incident in which a Hong Kong police officer shot a protestor at point-blank range, with a caption in Chinese which reads, "Youth is a crime!"
In stark contrast, Tsai is pictured on the right hugging a similar-looking, unbound person with a bright smile on her face. The caption next to her reads, "Young people are the most beautiful sight of Taiwan."
In December, Communist Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) praised Lam as being "courageous" in her handling of the Hong Kong protests, which included the arrest of 6,000 of what she referred to as "rioters," who were mainly young people. During Tsai's victory speech on Saturday, Tsai said: "You are all courageous Taiwanese youth" (你們是勇敢的台灣孩子).
Carrie Lam (left), Tsai Ing-wen (right). (SiuMingGraffiti illustration)
