Hong Kong’s Slide into Darkness

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has been almost completely absorbed into Communist China’s political system despite the promises made by Beijing in 1997 that HKSAR would be allowed to maintain its political autonomy “for fifty years” under a “one country, two systems” framework. So much for believing the ChiComs!

Throughout the 1990s to the present, the Chinese Communist Party has been redefining the meaning of that framework in order to implement “lawful” communist political and social controls over Hong Kong. The framework concepts were captured in the Basic Law of the HKSAR, which was passed by China’s National People’s Congress in 1990, to include guarantees of a “high degree of autonomy” for “Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong,” as noted here. All those high-minded promises made by Beijing were tossed in the trash in the summer of 2020 when the communists bypassed Hong Kong’s own legislative process to implement new draconian national security legislation. Here is how that transpired.

In retrospect, the Basic Law was part of the CCP’s long-term plan to exert complete political control over the HKSAR, as it included an article requiring the passage of national security legislation applicable to Hong Kong. From Article 23 of the 1990 Basic Law (emphasis added): “[HKSAR] shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, … and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.” The highlighted words are eerily similar to a summary of the main provisions in the new national security law – The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region – that was passed by the NPC last June (emphasis added): “The law, passed in China’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), includes 66 articles and covers four areas of criminal activity: secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces. Those convicted of such crimes face maximum sentences of life imprisonment.”

In effect, the 1990 Basic Law laid the foundation for passage of the key provisions of the national security law in 2020 – those dealing with the ability to coerce and control Hong Kong citizens and political activities based on CCP-defined prohibitions. It was imposed on Hong Kong by the NPCSC without input from the residents of HKSAR or their locally elected representatives. To give further evidence of the farce, the NPC had voted 2,878-to-1 to produce the new law to begin with. The law was always in the cards because it was a major objective in the CCP’s long-term plans to intimidate and control anyone deemed to be a threat to the CCP’s interests.

The national security law has given HKSAR police sweeping new powers, including the ability to conduct warrant-free raids. Here is a chronology of some of the shocking actions that have been taken under the law over the past 16 months:

• Intimidation of Hong Kong leaders accused of “politicizing the new law”
• Threatening to expel foreign reporters for “misreporting” how the law is being implemented
• Sanctioning of foreigners for violating the law
• Removal of books critical of the CCP from library shelves, banning of political slogans, and censorship in schools
• Self-censorship by publishers fearing prosecution under the law
• Firing of teachers who backed anti-government protests
• Arrests of student protestors for “inciting secession”
• Arrest of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, his two sons, and several of his executives
• Arrest of Hong Kong opposition activist Tam Tak-chi of the group People Power
• Arrest of teen activist Tony Chung (without bail!)
• Dozens more arrests, including pro-democracy activists, lawmakers, a pollster and a lawyer
• Forty more arrests (from the article: “every prominent, and even moderate, opposition voice in Hong Kong is either in jail or in exile”)
• Arrests of four student union leaders at the University of Hong Kong on suspicion of “advocating terrorism”
• Threatening The Wall Street Journal
• Arrests of 10 people for allegedly “urging voters to boycott the polls or cast blank ballots in protest” in the December 2021 elections

As indicated by the last bullet above, the legal threat to Hong Kong citizens posed by the national security law is also a key backdrop for those elections, which were the first to be held there since the law was implemented last year. The elections resulted in the typical rubber-stamped CCP-run farce that is no different from any held in the people’s congresses of townships, towns, districts, and counties in Communist China, as the only candidates on the election slates are CCP-approved. The pro-democracy proponents of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) got a first-hand experience of what “whole people’s democracy” really means – which does not square with the platitudes of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as reported here.

The stakes were high for the Communists in the elections, as a low turnout would have torpedoed the CCP’s propaganda campaign leading up to the election, which claimed that HKSAR residents have “great confidence in candidate’s abilities,” as bleated out by China Daily beforehand. China Daily also announced that 10,000 Hong Kong police would be deployed to polling places to “maintain order.”

It was entirely predictable that Hong Kong residents would not turn out in large numbers to simply rubber-stamp a slate of candidates approved by the CCP. Quoting the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, The Wall Street Journal opined beforehand that election turnout could be as low as 30%. And that prediction proved prescient, as Reuters reported that turnout was a record low of 30.2%! Apparently, Hong Kong residents are not enamored of the CCP’s “whole-process people’s democracy. The election in any event was the culmination of the CCP’s grand plan to exert full political control over HKSAR.

Other enclaves of overseas Chinese are in the sights of the CCP, too, after the HKSAR has been subdued. What is frightening is that the national security law allows the Communist China to pursue anyone deemed subversive, including overseas Chinese and even foreigners as noted here: “The law includes provisions criminalizing ‘offences’ committed not only in Hong Kong, but by anyone, anywhere around the globe. According to a December report submitted to Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, ‘Left unchecked, the law could grant the Chinese government broad power to censor global discourse.’”

Conclusion. The absorption of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Regime into the Chinese Communist Party’s political empire is nearly complete, and the December 2021 “elections” are sealing the deal. The record low voter turnout puts the lie to the CCP’s “whole-process people’s democracy.” The lessons-learned during the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong will almost certainly be applied to Taiwan if/when the Taiwan capitulates to Communist Chinese threats and intimidation.

Is Hong Kong’s present experience with “whole-process people’s democracy” a portent of Taiwan’s future? Given the “new normal” of PLA intimidation that have been implemented since Nancy Pelosi’s drive-by visit to Taipei on 2 August, that seems like a distinct possibility.

The end

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