New lawmaker vows to challenge Beijing interests
HONG KONG — The death threats began arriving soon after prodemocracy candidate and environmentalist Eddie Chu won a stunning Hong Kong legislative election victory earlier this month.
Middlemen, whom Chu won’t name so as not to jeopardize a police investigation, outlined the assassin’s recruitment, what he would be paid and when the hit would come.
Chu, whose shoestring-budget campaign won more votes than any other candidate in the Sept. 4 election, says the threats stem from his campaign promise to smash collusion between the government, real estate developers, “triad” criminal syndicates and rural kingpins who benefit from suburban redevelopment projects at the expense of ordinary villagers.
“All of these people are working with the Beijing government to destroy the rural areas of Hong Kong,” Chu said at an outdoor cafe at the city government headquarters complex. Two plainclothes police officers kept watch nearby.
A former British colony that now is a specially administered city under Chinese rule, Hong Kong is best known for its neon-lit skyscrapers. But beyond Kowloon’s fringe of rugged peaks lie the New Territories: 86 percent of the city’s land area.
Powerful vested interests supported by Beijing control the vast swath of farmland and old villages outside the space-starved city’s downtown core. Increasingly, such areas are being razed to make way for new public housing estates to accommodate an expanding population.
Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, the city has remained mostly peaceful and calm, despite massive, nonviolent pro-democracy protests two years ago.
After the threats, Chu moved his family out of their home and sought police protection while he prepares for his new role as a lawmaker in Hong Kong's semi-democratic Legislative Council.
“It’s not a bad thing to face this kind of challenge just after the election,” he said. “It's a very good reminder to me and my team that we are stepping into a dangerous area.”
He believes there's more “political violence” to come.