On the Taipei practice station, a Chinese language human rights activist named Cuicui watched with envy as six younger Taiwanese politicians campaigned for 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 aspect of the Taiwan Strait.

“We got here of age as activists across the similar time. Now they’re operating as legislators whereas my friends and I are in exile,” mentioned Cuicui, who fled China for Southeast Asia final 12 months over safety issues.

Cuicui was one in a gaggle of eight ladies I adopted final week in Taiwan earlier than the Jan. 13 election. Their tour was referred to as “Particulars 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 shifting to Taiwan throughout the pandemic. Her aim is to assist mainland Chinese language see Taiwan’s election firsthand.

The ladies went to election rallies and talked to politicians and voters, in addition to homeless folks 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 full of 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 had been imprisoned and at the least 1,000 had 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.

“Though it could appear to be touring backward in time for folks in Taiwan, for us, it’s the current,” mentioned Yamei, a Chinese language journalist in her 20s now residing exterior China.

Members of the group flew in from Japan, Southeast Asia and the US — anyplace however China. Each China and Taiwan have made it tougher for Chinese language 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 had been activists like Cuicui, who left the nation lately, whereas others had 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 language. 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 language mother and father, informed her to not get entangled in politics. Now she felt that everybody needed to contribute to push a society ahead.

Till a decade in the past, visiting Taiwan to witness its elections was a preferred exercise for mainland Chinese language who had been involved in exploring the chances of democratization.

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

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

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

That looks like a lifetime in the past. Quickly 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.

Final week’s group visited Taiwan beneath 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 simple for the group to image how folks had spent their time in crowded, humid and tacky cells and washed their garments in bogs.

“Many individuals 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 results of many individuals’s efforts,” he mentioned.

Mr. Chiang added, “It will likely be a really very long time earlier than China turns into a democracy.”

Everybody knew that was true. Nonetheless, it was deflating for them to listen to. However 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. On the web site of his self-immolation, her feedback resonated with the visiting Chinese language: “The predicament of a rustic can solely be resolved by the folks of that nation themselves.”

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

“If everybody does what they will, does it effectively and with a bit of extra braveness, our society will develop into higher,” 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. Because 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 establishment surrounded by absolute solemnity or excessive partitions that will intimidate you,” she mentioned. The distinction with Zhongnanhai, the compound for China’s prime leaders in Beijing, “was fairly placing.”

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

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

At election rallies, they noticed voters — younger and outdated, and oldsters with strollers — pack squares and stadiums to take heed to candidates make their pitches.

Within the days earlier than the election, they’d heard from many Taiwanese who had nonetheless not determined which of the three presidential candidates they’d vote for. But, the turnout on Taiwan’s Election Day was 72 p.c, greater than the 66 p.c 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 Celebration, Lai Ching-te, received with 40 p.c of the vote — not a satisfying final result even for a number of the get together’s supporters. However nonetheless the folks 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, “That is democracy.”

Then she mentioned: “I do know the mainlanders like freedom, too. They simply don’t have the ability to struggle again.”