Autonomy ends early for Hong Kong
New security law from China leaves pro-democracy protesters desperate and more defiant
“I expected to be older when 2047 came,” is the darkly humorous meme that has circulated among youth in Hong Kong over the past week.
Teenagers here have grown up knowing that, in their middle age, the SinoBritish Joint Declaration safeguarding their city’s high degree of autonomy from mainland China would expire, in the year 2047.
Suddenly, this could happen at any time.
A pro-democracy protester in Hong Kong told the Star via text: “It’s sinking in that for those of us who are still quite young, we won’t even have the next few decades to live our lives without fear. Now, we’re facing the reality that 2047 is here.
“There’s no more, ‘We’ll deal with that later,’ or ‘We’ll worry about that when we’re older.’ ”
In the past year, the young woman, who requested anonymity because she fears persecution, has been joining street demonstrations with her mother, donning masks and makeshift body coverings as their only protection against police tear gas, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, water hoses and, in some cases, live ammunition.
Protests have been part of life for Hong Kongers, ever since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement, which requires Beijing to respect the autonomy of Hong Kong’s rule-of-law legal system for 50 years.
But China’s Parliament voted last week to bypass Hong Kong’s legislature to develop and enact national security legislation on its own for the semi-autonomous territory. The law would criminalize acts including “secession,” “subversion” and activities by “foreign forces” to interfere with Hong Kong.
Jennifer Creery, a Hong Kong-born British reporter for the Hong Kong Free Press, said her first reaction to the national security law was “an overwhelming sense of shock.”
“It was always seen as something that would happen in the future, so clearly last year’s protests had sped up the process,” she told the Star in a phone interview.
“Now, journalists are worried that press freedom in Hong Kong will get worse as more may self-censor by avoiding topics that might land them in trouble.”
In a joint statement, Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Australia said the new legislation would “curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong’s autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous.”
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Beijing to de-escalate tensions and to “engage constructively” in dialogue with the people of Hong Kong. He said the Canadian government is “very concerned about the situation” because there are 300,000 Canadian citizens in Hong Kong “and millions of others who are fighting for justice and peace.”
The Chinese government has consistently labelled pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as dangerous and destabilizing. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office last month called protesters a “political virus” and said the city will never be calm until “poisonous” and “violent” demonstrators are eliminated.
Beijing’s resolve to push through the laws appears to have been hardened by its anger over the ongoing protests, and a determination to prevent them from reigniting this summer, experts say.
Since last summer, it’s estimated that more than a million Hong Kongers have marched peacefully in the streets, while some have participated in smaller flash protests that often turned violent when police and protesters clashed.
The uprisings were sparked by a nowabandoned extradition bill backed by city leader Carrie Lam that would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China to face trial. Although the bill has since been dropped, the protest movement expanded to call for full democracy, Lam’s resignation and an independent investigation into police brutality.
When a Star reporter visited Hong Kong last July, a group of young protesters had just broken into the city’s legislature, destroying furniture and leaving graffiti on the walls declaring, “Hong Kong is not China, not yet.”
The Hong Kong Police Force, once revered as “Asia’s finest,” said it had to do what was necessary to clear the “rioters.” Officers have also called the protesters “cockroaches.” Hundreds were arrested, at least three protesters were shot and others have died by suicide, leaving notes expressing sorrow over the city’s political fate. Many police officers were also injured, including one who was shot in the leg with a protester’s arrow.
The protests only let up when COVID-19 hit.
Hong Kong had suffered heavily from the SARS epidemic in 2003, and during the coronavirus epidemic, residents almost universally adopted the wearing of masks and physical distancing. Months later, the city of 7.4 million has only recorded four deaths from COVID-19.
The young female protester felt uneasy through months of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Hong Kong. She said she became more anxious as the city returned to normal routines while cases were still spiking in Western countries.
“Part of me thought, ‘Well this is a perfect time for the Chinese Communist Party to do something drastic!’ ” While another part of me thought, ‘Given the hostility towards China right now, would the CCP really risk it?’ ”
Beijing’s surprise move to swiftly pass the national security law also stunned Hong Kong’s pro-democracy politicians.
Hong Kong Legislative Council member Claudia Mo, who is a graduate of Ottawa’s Carleton University, describes the mood on the ground as “chiefly one of desperation.
“While some legal experts called the security law technically unconstitutional, there is no way we can challenge it — as Beijing itself is the constitution,” she told the Star in a text message.
One man told the Star he expects to be among the “first targets” of the national security law.
Nathan Law, 26, is a founder and former chair of Demosisto, a political party that emerged from the 2014 “Umbrella Movement” protests. At the age of 23, Law was elected as a legislator for Hong Kong Island, making him the youngest politician in the city’s history.
After he was ousted from the legislature and jailed for several months for his leading role in the 2014 protests, Law now sees his responsibility as helping to raise awareness about Hong Kong’s plight among the international community.
“Of course, the (founding) members of Demosisto, especially Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and I, are the priority targets of the national security law. So yes, indeed, we are worried but we will not give up. We will keep fighting and hope the world could join hands with us,” Law said in an interview.
However, Law’s warnings don’t resonate with some of his former constituents, who told the Star in interviews that they are fed up with the constant political unrest in their city.
While an overwhelming majority of Hong Kong residents said in a recent survey that they oppose the new legislation, among the business community, 61 per cent believe the national security law will actually have a positive impact on businesses in the long-run, according to a separate survey conducted this week by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.
But after the U.S. said it has determined that Hong Kong has lost its autonomy from China and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to retract special commercial status for Chinese exports from Hong Kong, the Chamber called on Beijing to make details of the law available as soon as possible to address uncertainties.
Trump’s move was welcomed by protesters, including Law, who believe it could stop Beijing from implementing the law.
However, the law and international responses to it would make the economic impact on Hong Kong — and the international businesses that operate there — far worse than it would be for China as a whole, said Rory Green, an economist for investment research firm TS Lombard.
“In the last 20 years, one of the big attractions offered by Hong Kong is that it was essentially China without the CCP. Businesses and funds could profit from breakneck economic expansion in the Mainland without taking the extra political and legal risks of operating in China,” Green told the Star in an email.
“The passing of the national security law, which effectively gives Beijing direct oversight of the former colony, fundamentally changes this dynamic. Hong Kong’s status as a common law free market entrepôt is now indelibly tarnished and unlikely to recover.”
But, he said, Hong Kong “won’t turn back into a sleepy fishing village overnight.”
For Mo, Trump’s decision is a doubleedged sword.
“Hong Kong protesters, especially our young, have called for ‘mutual destruction,’ but there are bound to be others who would lament the fact that while we are already suffering politically, now we’ll suffer economically as well,” she said.
The consensus among protesters is that if political pressure isn’t working, “conscious consumerism” and backing of international trade sanctions could be a last avenue of resistance.
“Beijing has extended its iron fist on Hong Kong already, and we are under no illusion that persuading China to act with temporary restraint would solve the underlying problem of the timeline being changed,” said a male protester in his twenties, who asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns.
“This is 2047 being brought forward 27 years.”