Communist Party emerges from shadows during Hong Kong crackdown
HONG KONG, July 10, (AFP) - China's Communist Party has abandoned its tradition of working from the shadows in Hong Kong as authorities pursue a sweeping crackdown on critics and remould the financial hub in the mainland's authoritarian image.
While Hong Kong was returned by colonial Britain in 1997, Beijing has historically been wary about making the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) too visible in a city where many hail from families who fled the worst excesses of its rule.
“There were a few reasons for the CCP to be kept out of sight,” political analyst Willy Lam told AFP. “The CCP was associated with a series of horrendous mistakes including the Cultural Revolution, the three years of famine and so forth.” Beijing's quiet support for leftist riots which killed about 50 Hong Kongers in 1967 -- and Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown -- also left a deeply
ingrained suspicion of the party for many residents.
Ahead of the handover, former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping -- creator of the “one country, two systems” model where Hong Kong could keep key freedoms and autonomy -- moved to calm nerves by assuring residents that they did not need to love the party to be deemed patriots.
“We don't demand that they be in favour of China's socialist system; we only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong,” he said.
With 90 million members, the party is ubiquitous on the mainland but in Hong Kong it has been all but invisible.
The party itself has never registered as an official entity and the city's proxy leaders have always denied being members -at least while in office.
But the CCP has moved increasingly centre stage in recent years, culminating most prominently in this month's festivities marking the centenary of the party's founding. Hammer and sickle flags have sprung up across the city in recent weeks along with huge billboards proclaiming the anniversary.