China dismantles Hong Kong institutions
In Hong Kong’s first elections since Beijing’s radical overhaul of the polling system in May, pro-Beijing candidates have won all but one of the positions on Hong Kong’s 1,500 person Election Committee, says Primrose Riordan in the Financial Times. The electoral revamp increased the size of the Election Committee by 25% but reduced the number of voters by 97% to just 4,800, comprising “mostly pro-Beijing Hong Kong elites”. In 2022, the group will choose Hong Kong’s next chief executive and appoint 40 of its 90 legislative seats, says Helen Davidson in The Guardian. Of the remaining 50, 30 will be chosen by special interest groups and “just 20 will be directly elected”. The Chinese and Hong Kong authorities say the changes ensure “anti-China elements will be barred from office”. Critics say it is designed to align Hong Kong’s political system with that of China.
The “sham election highlights that the Beijing-led crackdown on Hong Kong’s political system, in the wake of the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, is nearly complete,” says Chiara Rimella in Monocle. So far, international attention to China’s repression has focused on high-profile figures such as protest leader Joshua Wong or tycoon Jimmy Lai, who owned the Apple Daily newspaper, but Beijing is also “dismantling the city’s unions,” says Maya Wang in The Nation. Chinese state media describe the unions as a “chronic poison of society” despite their “long and illustrious histories of defending civil liberties and workers’ rights” in a city known for “hyper-capitalism”. Fears of persecution have led many civic groups including the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, to disband, says Rhoda Kwan on Hong Kong
Free Press. The HKCTU’s founder and general secretary, activist Lee Cheuk-yan, is now serving 20 months in prison for taking part in the 2019 prodemocracy protests and faces a “national security charge of ‘incitement to subversion’”.