When Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997, freedom-lovers had a deep sense of foreboding. How long, they wondered, before China’s promises to treat Hong Kong differently from the mainland — to leave its political liberalism intact — would fall by the wayside.
The answer was clear almost from the start.
China’s persistent erosion of political freedom and civil rights in Hong Kong exploded into public view around the world this week, when huge protests erupted over a proposal to allow Hong Kong residents to be extradited to the mainland. The proposed law is unpopular partly because it would give Beijing a formal means of cracking down on dissidents and other undesirables living or taking refuge in the “special adminis-trative region.”
But the protests also reflect broader dissatisfaction with China’s rat-like gnawing at Hong Kong’s way of life. Hong Kong was supposed to remain largely unchanged during the “one country, two systems” agreement set up to govern the territory for 50 years after Britain’s exit.
But even before the British departed, the Chinese began tightening their grip by proposing laws to control demonstrations and prevent desecration of the new Hong Kong flag. Days before the transfer of power, the incoming leader of Hong Kong, C.H. Tung, responded to protests marking the eighth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre by urging the people of Hong Kong to put the “baggage” of Tiananmen behind them.
China wanted Hong Kong’s burgeoning economy and it wanted to recover sovereignty over territory ceded to Britain in the 19th century. The communist state never had any intention of letting Hong Kong remain a beacon of freedom in Asia.
The meddling in Hong Kong only was bound to increase under Chinese President Xi Jinping, a ruler unlike any other since Mao Zedong. Mr. Xi has set himself up to be ruler for life, cracked down on dissidents, sent Muslim Uighurs to concentration camps, cowed or co-oped other Asian states, and mounted militant foreign and economic policies leading to the current trade war with the U.S. Control of everyone and everything is Mr. Xi’s bottom line.
During Mr. Xi’s tenure — he became president in 2013 —the Chinese puppets in Hong Kong have banned a pro-independence political party and cracked down on pro-democracy activists, including leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement. They introduced politically themed education in Hong Hong schools and infused the territory’s gov-ernment with communist yes-men.
Even independent thought has been tamped down. In 2015, five employees of a controversial Hong Kong bookstore went missing, only to turn up in the hands of Chinese authorities — leaving one to wonder why the Chinese and Hong Kong governments even consider the proposed extradition law to be necessary.
People in Hong Kong still enjoy more freedom than those in mainland China, and they still mark the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, something the residents of Beijing are not allowed to do. But some grimly joke that Chinese tampering with Hong Kong has resulted in a “one country, 1.5 systems” arrangement that’s going to get worse, not better,
How long Mr. Xi will tolerate the Hong Kong protests is unclear. If history is a guide, not long. Sadly, as the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission noted last year, Hong Kong is morphing into just another Chinese city.
First Published: June 14, 2019, 10:30 a.m.
