China keeps lid on Hong Kong

MUTED: FLASH-MOB PROTESTS NUMBERS DOWN

Only hundreds gather to commemorate start of pro-democracy demonstrations.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong yesterday marked a year since pro-democracy protests erupted, as mass arrests, coronavirus bans on gatherings and a looming national security law kept a lid on any return to citywide unrest.

Seven months of massive and often violent rallies kicked off on 9 June last year when as many as one million people took to the streets to oppose a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China.

As city leaders dug in, battles between police and protesters became routine, leaving the city’s reputation for stability in tatters and swathes of the population in revolt against Beijing’s rule.

Yesterday, flash-mob protests were held at lunchtime in multiple malls but crowds were just a few hundred strong.

“I will take to the streets as long as there is a march and I will sit in as long as there is a rally,” said a trader in her 50s, surnamed Ng, who regularly travelled to the authoritarian mainland. “I know how things work there and I can’t accept that sort of system taking root in Hong Kong.”

Messaging groups also called for gatherings in the evening.

City leader Carrie Lam, an unpopular pro-Beijing appointee, said: “Hong Kong cannot afford such chaos”, adding residents needed to prove they “are reasonable and sensible citizens of the People’s Republic of China” if they want their freedoms and autonomy to continue.

Under a deal signed with Britain ahead of the 1997 handover, China agreed to let Hong Kong keep certain freedoms and autonomy for 50 years.

Protests have been fuelled by fears those freedoms are being prematurely curtailed, something Beijing denies.

Analysts say the space for dissent has rapidly diminished in the last year.

“I don’t think the passion has subsided much, but ... many actions are now not allowed,” Leung Kaichi, an analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said.

Beyond a withdrawal of the extradition Bill, other core demands – such as universal suffrage and an inquiry into police tactics – have been rejected by the city’s leadership and Beijing.

Instead, China has unveiled plans to impose a law that will bypass the city’s legislature entirely – banning subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign interference. –

I don’t think the passion has subsided much