At the Taipei prepare station, a Chinese human rights activist named Cuicui watched with envy as six younger Taiwanese politicians campaigned for the town’s legislative seats. A decade in the past, they’d been concerned in parallel democratic protest actions — she in China, and the politicians on the alternative facet of the Taiwan Strait.

“We came of age as activists around the same time. Now they’re running as legislators while my peers and I are in exile,” mentioned Cuicui, who fled China for Southeast Asia final 12 months over safety considerations.

Cuicui was one in a bunch of eight girls I adopted final week in Taiwan earlier than the Jan. 13 election. Their tour was known as “Details of a Democracy” and was put collectively by Annie Jieping Zhang, a mainland-born journalist who labored in Hong Kong for twenty years earlier than transferring to Taiwan in the course of the pandemic. Her objective is to assist mainland Chinese see Taiwan’s election firsthand.

The girls went to election rallies and talked to politicians and voters, in addition to homeless individuals and different deprived teams. They attended a stand-up comedy present by a person from China, now residing in Taiwan, whose humor addressed subjects which might be taboo in his residence nation.

It was an emotional journey crammed with envy, admiration, tears and revelations.

The group made a number of stops at websites that demonstrated the “White Terror” repression Taiwan went although between 1947 and 1987, when tens of hundreds of individuals have been imprisoned and not less than 1,000 have been executed after being accused of spying for China. They visited a former jail that had jailed political prisoners. For them, it was a historical past lesson in Taiwan’s journey from authoritarianism to democracy, a path they imagine is more and more unattainable in China.

“Although it may seem like traveling backward in time for people in Taiwan, for us, it’s the present,” mentioned Yamei, a Chinese journalist in her 20s now residing outdoors China.

Members of the group flew in from Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States — wherever however China. Both China and Taiwan have made it tougher for Chinese to go to the island as tensions between them have spiked over Beijing’s more and more assertive declare on the island. They ranged in age from their 20s to their 70s. Some have been activists like Cuicui, who left the nation just lately, whereas others have been professionals and businesspeople who’ve lived overseas for years and usually are not essentially political of their outlook.

Angela Chen, an actual property agent in Portland, Ore., joined the tour to take her mom on a trip. Ms. Chen is a naturalized U.S. citizen who identifies culturally as Chinese. The journey was eye opening, she mentioned. She was shocked to find out how tragic and fierce Taiwan’s democratization course of had been. Her father, like many Chinese mother and father, informed her to not get entangled in politics. Now she felt that everybody needed to contribute to push a society ahead.

Until a decade in the past, visiting Taiwan to witness its elections was a preferred exercise for mainland Chinese who have been enthusiastic about exploring the chances of democratization.

It’s straightforward to see why. Most Taiwanese converse Mandarin and share a cultural heritage with China as Han Chinese. As mainlanders looked for an alternate Chinese society, they naturally turned to Taiwan for solutions.

I traveled to Taiwan in 2012 to report about such a bunch, which had greater than a dozen prime Chinese intellectuals, entrepreneurs and buyers. At the time, debates in regards to the professionals and cons of democracy, republicanism and constitutionalism have been widespread on Chinese social media.

Opinion leaders have been asking whether or not China would ever have a pacesetter like Chiang Ching-kuo, the Taiwanese president who step by step shifted away from the dictatorial rule of his father, Chiang Kai-shek, within the Eighties.

That looks like a lifetime in the past. Soon after that, Xi Jinping took over as China’s chief, and he has moved the nation in the wrong way. Civil society has been pushed underground and discussions about democracy forbidden.

Last week’s group visited Taiwan below very completely different circumstances. Most of them wished to stay nameless, agreeing to speak to me provided that I recognized them by their first identify, as a result of merely cheering Taiwan’s democracy is politically delicate.

At Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, the previous jail, it was straightforward for the group to image how individuals had spent their time in crowded, humid and tacky cells and washed their garments in bathrooms.

“Many people thought that Taiwan’s democracy fell from the sky,” Antonio Chiang, a former journalist, dissident and adviser to the departing president, Tsai Ing-wen, informed the group over lunch after their go to to the jail web site. “It was the result of many people’s efforts,” he mentioned.

Mr. Chiang added, “It will be a very long time before China becomes a democracy.”

Everyone knew that was true. Still, it was deflating for them to listen to. But their despair didn’t final lengthy.

They heard from the daughter of Cheng Nan-jung, a writer and pro-democracy activist who set himself on fireplace to protest the dearth of freedom of speech in 1989. At the location of his self-immolation, her feedback resonated with the visiting Chinese: “The predicament of a country can only be resolved by the people of that country themselves.”

Then they went to the stand-up present by the comedian, who was from Xinjiang, the western Chinese area the place a couple of million Muslims have been despatched to re-education facilities. Everyone cried. It was each heartbreaking and cathartic for them to listen to somebody utilizing phrases, equivalent to “Uyghurs,” “re-education camps” and “lockdowns,” which might be thought of too delicate to be mentioned at a public venue in China.

“If everyone does what they can, does it well and with a little more courage, our society will become better,” mentioned the comedian, who requested to not be named.

For the group, essentially the most empowering a part of the tour was to witness the residents organizing themselves and casting their votes. As the guests gathered on the island’s presidential palace, Yamei, the journalist, was stunned that its entrance was painted peachy pink.

“It was not an institution surrounded by absolute solemnity or high walls that would intimidate you,” she mentioned. The distinction with Zhongnanhai, the compound for China’s prime leaders in Beijing, “was quite striking.”

After watching a documentary about bar hostesses who had organized a union, they realized that the ladies had drafted laws to guard their rights. That can be unimaginable for anybody in China.

While homeless persons are largely invisible in Chinese cities — as a result of the authorities gained’t enable them to be seen — the group realized that many organizations in Taiwan present homeless individuals with meals, locations to bathe and different help.

At election rallies, they noticed voters — younger and previous, and fogeys with strollers — pack squares and stadiums to hearken to candidates make their pitches.

In the times earlier than the election, they’d heard from many Taiwanese who had nonetheless not determined which of the three presidential candidates they might vote for. Yet, the turnout on Taiwan’s Election Day was 72 percent, increased than the 66 % that got here out within the U.S. presidential election in 2020, the highest turnout in an American vote since 1900.

The candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Lai Ching-te, gained with 40 % of the vote — not a satisfying end result even for a few of the get together’s supporters. But nonetheless the individuals selected who can be their chief.

At a rally within the southern metropolis of Tainan, amid the sounds of drums, gongs and fireworks, Lin Lizhen, the proprietor of a jewellery retailer, informed the tour group proudly, “This is democracy.”

Then she mentioned: “I know the mainlanders like freedom, too. They just don’t have the power to fight back.”