After the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842, Hong Kong became a British colony. Other nearby territories changed hands after the Second Opium War in 1860. In 1898, the British Empire forced Imperial China to lease the so-called New Territories to London for 99 years. It was one of several “unequal treaties” between China and several colonial powers.
On July 1, 1997 the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories back to China, that is to the CCP one-party dictatorship which, in return, enshrined the “one country, two systems” principle in a document called the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s embryonic constitution.
Emily Lau told me in a 1999 interview (full English interview after the German text): “The British Government did not try to introduce democratic government in Hong Kong in the final years of colonial rule. Mr Chris Patten proposed a drop of democracy just to show that Britain did make an attempt. You can call that a fig leaf for their conscience. It was woefully inadequate, very little and very late!”
The Basic Law stipulates that Hong Kong’s chief executive is to be selected by “universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee.”
For 50 years, until 2047, the Basis Law should ensure that Hong Kong retains an independent judiciary, a multi-party system, freedom of speech, press and assembly, to name just a few rights.
However, instead of guaranteeing a high degree of autonomy, with the exception of foreign and defence affairs, the CCP adopted “salami tactics”, cutting the rights and freedoms of HongKongers slice by slice.
The 2014 Umbrella Revolution with protests including over 100,000 people marching in the streets of Hong Kong clearly showed what a large part of HongKongers were thinking about a decision by the Standing Committee of the National’s People’s Congress to change the HK electoral system.
2019 was another tipping point: Beijing wanted to impose an extradition bill that could allow HongKongers accused of crimes to be tried in China. The majority of the people of Hong Kong immediately understood the danger. Some of the largest protests in the history of Hong Kong followed. Almost 2 of the 7.3 million Hong Kongers went to the streets!
In the November 2019 Hong Kong local elections — the only free and fair elections in this special administrative zone —, a record 71% of voters went to the polls. The Pro-Democracy candidates won over 85% of the seats in the Hong Kong local district councils. They went from 126 to 388 out of the 452 seats contested in the local elections. The Pro-Beijing candidates suffered unprecented losses (already mentioned in February 2020 article regarding the CCP and the pandemic). This election clearly showed were the majority of HongKongers stood. But the CCP renewed its salami tactics.
Under a new LegCo law imposed by Bejing in 2021, parliamentary candidates must be vetted by a sceening committee. This allows the CCP and its Hong Kong cheerleaders to eliminate anyone considered to critical of Beijing to be barred from running in HK elections. The new pseudo-“patriotic” LegCo law reduced the proportion of lawmakers directly elected by Hong Kong voters from an already low 50% to just 22%.
Xi Xinping and the CCP celebrated the return of Hong Kong to China exactly 25 years ago. As with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949-2019; German article), for HongKongers, there was nothing to celebrate on July 1, 2022.
The West cannot stand by and watch the totally corrupt, Chinese one-party dictatorship impose its will on the world. As mentioned in 2022, if the 21st should become the Asian century, let it be a democratic one. Otherwise, the future of Hong Kong looks grim. Most Chinese could very well live in a democratic state. Taiwan is the living proof and, therefore, a thorn in the side of the CCP.
In December 1986, Chinese students and intellectuals had demanded greater economic and political freedoms. The regime’s strong man who had once introduced economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, told the party’s general secretary Hu Yaobang to silence the protests, but Hu Yaobang refused. Party and military leaders forced him to resign in 1987. Hu Yaobang died on April 15, 1989. The death of this (potential) reformer led one week later to protests on Tiananmen Square. Premier Li Peng came under fire from students who wanted more political and economic freedom, freedom of speech and press as promoted by Hu Yaobang.
On June 4, 1989 the Tiananmen Square Massacre took place when the CCP decided to crush student dissent in Beijing. On May 2 of the same year, the Hungarian Communist regime had decided to dismantle the Iron curtain separating the Warsaw Pact country from free and neutral Austria. The beginning of the end of the Soviet bloc was imminent. How quickly it would unfold may not have been clear, but it became foreseeable. Many CCP leaders understood that true political reforms would mean the end of the communist regime in China. Therefore, the decision was taken to crush any dissent.
Under President Xi Jinping, a dictator for life, the political climate has become even colder. Not only the mostly-Muslim Uyghurs as well as Tibetans can feel the iron fist of the corrupt, pseudo-communist regime, but anyone voicing dissent.
Until recently, Hong Kong still enjoyed freedom of speech, press freedom as well as some other liberties. It’s all gone now. The Reporters Without Borders press freedom index ranks Hong Kong 148th out of 180 countries in the world. Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai and some other 180 journalists are in jail and over 1,000 got fired within months. Censorship and self-censorship are omnipresent. Dissenters risk fines, to end up behind bars or to disappear. The rule of law is under threat, which affects business too. Freedom of research at universities is no longer guaranteed.
The “election” of the CCP cheerleader and former policeman John Lee as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive says it all. He has been a key figure in the crackdown on Hong Kong student protests, the push for the 2019 extradition bill and the National Security Law.
In his Hong Kong speech on July 1, 2022 Xi Jinping said the “one country, two systems” formula had been successful and that “there is no reason at all to change it. It must be maintained over the long term.” But the dictator for life forget to mention that the HK system has already been fundamentally changed. Xi Jinping added that “Hong Kong cannot be chaotic” and that “any interference must be eliminated.”
The West has finally woken up. Obama understood that the rise of Asia was unavoidable. Trump embarked on a trade war, but attacked at the same time his potential, most important ally, the EU. In 2022 finally, NATO has identified China as a threat to Western interests, security and values.
Under Deng Xiaoping, the CCP embraced capitalism and globalization. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 and even more so after Xi Jinping’s rise to power, the road towards more political liberties has been abandoned. With the help of the internet, the cell phone and CCTV, China has become a total surveillance state. Large parts of the masses have been brainwashed. With the rising standard of living, will the younger people ask for more liberties? Will change come from within the system, maybe after Xi Jinping’s death? As mentioned in February 2020, the covid pandemic remains a test for the CCP and Xi Jinping: the credibility and legitimacy of the regime remain on the line.
Imagine Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese regime had had a functioning economic system, plenty of natural resources as well as nuclear weapons. That’s what the West would have to face by a possible alliance between China, Russia and Iran, to name just a few dictatorships.
Even for the CCP, there are limits to growth. There is no rule of law in China. The intellectual property of Western investors is not respected. Corruption is omnipresent. Even Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba and one of China’s richest entrepreneurs, temporarily “diseappeared”. China’s soft power is limited.
The one-child policy has been abandoned in 2016. But parents are still having very few children. China’s population is shrinking. That’s good for the world’s climate, but bad for China’s growth.
Nevertheless, as stated in several articles (e.g. here), even if GDP per capita should just reach half the U.S. number, the Chinese economy would be more than twice the size of the U.S. one because the Chinese population is more than for times the size of the U.S. population. In short: FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS! Western greed and incompetence has led China to become a serious rival.
Suggested reading:
John M. Carroll: A Concise History of Hong Kong. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, paperback, 2007, 288 pages. Order the book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
More books about Hong Kong from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de.
2016 photo of Xi Jinping from 2016. Cropped from a photo showing Xi Jinping with Narendra Modi. Date 23 June 2016. Photo copyright: Press Information Bureau of the Government of India (via Wikipedia).
Article added on July 3, 2022 at 19:02 Swiss time.
