Taiwan, page-39

The big difference between communism and democracy is the fact that when government corruption is exposed, a mechanism is available for resolving it by holding the government to account because of respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Democracy usually includes a method for marrying power with responsibility and accountability to the people.

Communist governments survive by jailing or disappearing critics or those who might oppose them or tell the truth about corruption or mistakes so the leadership never needs to be accountable for mistakes or corruption. Instead they rely on intimidation and coercion which is not limited to individuals but also their families, friends and associates. Basically they rely on fear, censorship, rewriting history and lies to retain power and transform "rule by law" into "rule of law" where ambiguous laws are crafted to be used as a tool to jail anybody the regime might not like. Mainland China, North Korea, Russia and satellites all display these characteristics for everyone to see.

Anybody looking at the way Hong Kong has been taken over will see exactly the way this process is rolled out. An ambiguous retrospective "National Security Law" has been imposed which has removed and jailed all popularly elected democratic legislators. Anybody critical of the government has been arrested on "suspicion "of breaking the law or "endangering national security" or "colluding with foreign forces" (a crime usually reserved for wartime). Instead of the normal practice of being considered innocent until proven guilty, suspects are rounded up in dawn raids and routinely denied bail and kept in jail for months or years while the alleged crime is "investigated" by a newly set up "National Security Police unit". They are denied trial by jury and judges with views sympathetic to the authorities are specially selected to preside over the trial. School textbooks are being rewritten with a revised history. Movies and news shows are censored so only favourable views of the government and policies are available in the media. Complaints against police are dismissed and the complainants prosecuted.

So if residents of Taiwan ever had any thoughts that being annexed by the CCP under the one country two systems formula might not be so bad, those doubts have now been completely erased. There is not a chance in hell that Taiwanese will accept governance by the CCP, at least not in its current form. Most likely they would prefer to fight to the death rather than be subjugated by such a regime.