What has changed and why: the transformation and (de)legitimisation of post-COVID policing in Hong Kong and Taiwan

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper conducts a comparative analysis of the governance and policing frameworks in Hong Kong and Taiwan, examining their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic’s public health crisis and the resulting shifts in policing contexts. Hong Kong experienced significant changes in police-citizen relations before the pandemic, notably during the 2019 protests that garnered global media attention and eroded public trust in the government. With the advent of COVID-19, Hong Kong introduced stringent anti-pandemic legislation aimed at achieving ‘zero-COVID’, further empowering the police for law enforcement. In contrast, Taiwan effectively managed the epidemic from 2020, keeping mass infections at bay until mid-2022, without significant social conflicts. This study delves into the academic implications of these divergent outcomes, seeking to explain what and why changes occurred (or did not) in these two places. Hong Kong’s response to the global health crisis, including the introduction of the National Security Law, fundamentally transformed its policing context, dismantling autonomous civil societies and reshaping public trust in the government and its police. In comparison, Taiwan’s policing exhibited limited post-crisis transformation, maintaining high public trust even amid stringent quarantine and lockdown regulations. This divergence reflects varying pathways of the legitimisation of police influenced by geopolitics, underscoring the importance of comparative studies in comprehending transformations of policing in different contexts following the global public health crisis.