Where freedom dies and the world watches

November: Hong Kong legislative elections

“This is the end of Hong Kong,” announced pro-democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok last week. On May 21, Beijing announced that it would unilaterally impose a national security bill on the city, bypassing its legislature. The bill prohibits treason, secession, sedition, subversion, and any activities that would “seriously endanger national security,” specifically targeting the pro-democracy movement. The bill was formally approved today.

Dissent will essentially become illegal. As Hong Kong’s autonomy has eroded over the years, its residents have grown increasingly afraid of what the city’s future might hold. Now, 23 years after Britain returned the former colony to China, it has suffered the greatest blow to its civil liberties yet. Many feel hopeless. Protesters on the street are chanting a slogan that would have been considered extreme only a few months ago: “Hong Kong independence, the only way out!”

Hong Kong has dominated international headlines for the last year. In 2019, Chief Executive Carrie Lam made the disastrous decision to advance legislation allowing the extradition of suspected criminals to mainland China, where politically motivated arrests are common and courts convict defendants in more than 99.9% of cases. Unsurprisingly, Hong Kongers feared that the proposed law would effectively put an end to their rights and freedoms. The city plunged into six months of unrest, and then faced COVID-19 months before Europe and the United States. Now, only a few months before the territory of 7.5 million residents holds important legislative elections, the situation seems more dire than ever.

Since the handover in 1997, Hong Kong residents have enjoyed freedoms unknown elsewhere in China. Except when it comes to defense and foreign affairs, Hong Kong essentially runs itself, in an arrangement known as “One Country, Two Systems” that is supposed to last until 2047. But the city's liberties have already diminished at a dizzying speed: pro-democracy lawmakers booted out of office, a foreign journalist expelled, a political party banned, major activists jailed, all in the last three years.

While Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are blocked on the mainland, you can use them freely in Hong Kong. Journalists in the city work without fear of state harassment or censorship, and every year, tens of thousands attend a commemoration for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre – an event that has been thoroughly scrubbed from mainland Chinese media. In Hong Kong, pro-democracy protesters were able to bring parts of the city to a standstill for months during the 2014 “Umbrella Movement, something that would not have been possible in Beijing. In China, authorities have cracked down so brutally on the Uighur ethnic minority – which they believe to hold separatist and extremist views – that they hold an estimated million Uighurs in detention camps.

Hong Kong differs socio-culturally as well. The city speaks Cantonese, while the official language in mainland China is Mandarin. Like Taiwan, Hong Kong writes using traditional Chinese characters, while the rest of China uses simplified characters. Hong Kongers are considered Chinese nationals, but hold separate passports. Hong Kong uses the Hong Kong Dollar, while mainland China uses the Renminbi. Asked to choose, 55% of the city — the highest rate since 1997 — told pollsters that they identify as Hong Kongers rather than Chinese.

Hong Kongers are acutely aware that they are nearing the halfway point of the fifty-year “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement. Young people in particular are worried for their future: What will happen in 2047?

On June 9, 2019, a million Hong Kongers — young and old, from all walks of life — took to the streets in a peaceful march against the proposed extradition bill. I had never seen so many people. Despite the heat, crowds, and feverish emotion, the protest remained peaceful. Three days later, thousands of protesters surrounded the Legislative Council and clashed with police, successfully thwarting debate on the bill. Lam compared the protesters to “spoiled” children. On June 16, angered by her comments and the police’s use of violence, two million people took to the streets in yet another remarkably peaceful protest.

Soon after, though, the police force that liked to call itself “Asia’s finest” began an increasingly brutal crackdown, often targeting journalists. The streets I had walked without fear my entire life were now routinely choked with tear gas; once, officers fired canisters at me and a small group of colleagues on an almost empty street, then tightly encircled us with riot shields for no apparent reason. Police fired more than 10,000 canisters of tear gas in just over five months. Protesters threw back bricks and Molotov cocktails. Nearly 8,000 protesters were arrested. Many were charged with rioting, which can carry a 10-year sentence.

The government stood its ground for months. The bill was not formally withdrawn until late October. But by then, the damage had been done. The protesters wanted democracy and wouldn’t back down. It didn’t seem to matter that nobody — not even the protestors themselves — thought that they stood a chance against China. To them, it was important just to make a stand.

The new national security bill is China’s boldest step yet in asserting control over Hong Kong. One of the bill’s more worrying provisions allows Chinese security agencies to operate openly within the city. Hong Kongers are still reeling from the news, shocked at how swiftly and completely Beijing may have just ended “One Country, Two Systems.” Everyone is now wondering what this will mean for teachers, journalists, lawyers, activists, and businesses — everyone. For the first time, I’m questioning whether I’ll have to leave my home, permanently, for my own safety.

Beijing’s drastic move makes clear that it doesn’t really care what people in Hong Kong or around the world think. Last year showed that protest, peaceful or violent, didn’t work, and people are already looking to labor unions as a new way to organize. But for now, it’s unclear what more activists can do. Nevertheless, they remain determined: “We must stand up and fight back,” tweeted student activist Joshua Wong. “We need to try our best to oppose the evil national security law.”

Though dampened by COVID-19 and the memory of last year’s reprisals, a second summer of discontent has just kicked off, with thousands taking to the streets and hundreds already arrested. More violence is sure to come, and the police have signaled a willingness to crack down even harder. Yesterday, after the police detained hundreds and fired pepper bullets at peaceful protesters in the city’s financial district, a lawmaker compared Hong Kong to a police state. 

Come September, the Legislative Council will hold its first elections since last year’s mass protests. But it’s unlikely that the results will change much.

Unlike those on the mainland, people in Hong Kong have been able to vote for their own lawmakers in the legislature — the Legislative Council, or LegCo for short — since 1998. Half of the 70 legislative councilors are chosen democratically, while the other half are “elected” through not-so-democratic means. Councilors in the first group represent geographical constituencies, meaning that ordinary people elect them to represent their area, while those in the second group represent functional constituencies, meaning that interest groups elect them to represent industries or sectors such as finance, agriculture and fisheries, or education.

There are plenty of pro-democracy lawmakers, but the pro-Beijing camp has always held a majority, because it’s generally in industries’ favor to support Beijing. In any case, it’s the city’s Chief Executive who has the real power. He or she is elected by a 1,200-member committee that “Beijing set up in order to control Hong Kong’s politics,” as the Wall Street Journal has explained.

Pro-democracy lawmakers have been optimistic they can now achieve a majority in the Legislative Council, especially after their landslide victory in the local council elections last November. Unlike legislative councilors, district councilors don’t have much political power — they deal with issues like pipe leaks and errant wild boar — but the public turned out in record-shattering numbers to vote for democrats anyway. People were elated, popping champagne and throwing public dance parties: their votes sent a message to Hong Kong and to the world. One of these celebrations was the only joyous occasion I was able to report on during last year’s protests. I photographed masked protesters waving glow sticks alongside elderly ladies.

Chinese state–owned media often claimed that a “silent majority” of Hong Kongers opposed the pro-democracy protests. But November’s elections proved otherwise, showing that the pro-democracy movement had broad support and landing a major blow to Beijing. At the end of the day, Beijing has the power in Hong Kong, something that has never been made clearer than when it approved the national security law. But the pro-democracy movement has been able to thrive leaderless for so long because people believe that every action and individual is an opportunity for defiance, whether it’s scrawling a message of hope on a Post-it, or joining a two-million-person march. So come the LegCo elections, assuming free and fair elections, you can expect people make a stand and to vote. The rest of the world, including Beijing, will be watching closely — whether or not it does much to change Hong Kong’s fate.