A year ago, Hong Kong’s newly elected district councilor, Fergus Leung, was excited while standing outside a large public building on Hong Kong Island, cheerfully greeting the constituents. In a white button-down shirt and metal-framed glasses, the young and serious student at the University of Hong Kong answered questions about trash cans and rent increases, promising to help supporters and also win over skeptics.
But as a sign of how Beijing has drastically reduced political freedoms in Hong Kong in the past six months, last week Mr. Leung and 52 other elected officials and pro-democracy activists – including an American citizen – were seized and arrested in the beginning morning raids by about 1,000 Hong Kong police.
The alleged offense of Mr. Leung and his colleagues? Subversion, for what not so long ago would have been a normal political action: organizing and participating in the legislative primaries promoted by Democrats last July. Subversion is punishable by life sentences.
The crackdown on Hong Kong’s political opposition marks a radical departure from the previous year, when record voter turnout produced an overwhelming victory for Leung and other advocates of democracy in November 2019. The election delivered pro-democracy and independent candidates the control of 17 of 18 of Hong Kong’s district councils, reversing their former dominance by pro-Beijing politicians.
This election, which took place amid months of massive protests for democracy in Hong Kong, no doubt signaled that the majority of voters sought to maintain and strengthen freedoms, as promised by Beijing when it regained control over the British colony in 1997. But Beijing it was moving in the opposite direction, constantly restricting Hong Kong’s judicial autonomy and independence, and instead promoting integration with mainland China.
Alarmed by popular protests and the electoral victory of pro-democracy candidates, Beijing last June imposed a new draconian national security law that officials are now using to eliminate and punish political opposition to a greater degree than ever, experts say .
“It is a great sweep of all opposition leaders. Essentially, anyone who dares to run for election is seen as a challenge to Beijing’s authority in Hong Kong, ”says Victoria Tin-bor Hui, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and a native of Hong Kong. “The meaning is enormous.”
Beijing’s calculation was that “if free and fair elections take place, pro-Beijing parties will not win, so in the face of that, the ‘obvious’ solution would be to dismantle democratic institutions and completely eliminate political opposition,” said Alvin Cheung, a Hong Kong lawyer and university professor now at New York University.
For the moderate Mr. Leung – whose agenda a year ago ranged from planning day trips for the elderly and Chinese New Year festivities to modernizing the recycling and protection of the centenary wild pigs and fig trees in his district – the aspirations for a healthy political career will now probably lead you to prison.
“There is a good chance that Beijing authorities will achieve what they want: to literally silence any kind of dissent, including freedom of expression, including through very peaceful means and formal legal channels,” said Professor Hui. “Hong Kong is fast becoming like the rest of China.”
Game-changing law
Last May, as Beijing drafted the national security law from the top down, Leung gave his support to the Hong Kong citizens who gathered to oppose it – only to receive a pepper spray on the face by the police while moving to protect protesters. “More than 300 peaceful protesters have been arrested,” he tweeted, with a photo of himself blind and shuddering with pepper spray.
Leung warned that the law would fuel more radical opposition. “The CCP’s latest move means that ‘burning’ in Hong Kong is inevitable,” he wrote – referring to a strategy of staunch protesters known as “laam chau”(Literally,“ braised ”) in Cantonese, and captured by the slogan,“ if we burn, you will burn with us ”.
Then, in a swift and secretive move, Beijing bypassed the Hong Kong legislature and enacted the law on June 30. Overnight, not just Hong Kong citizens, but anyone else, was at risk of being accused of broadly defined national security crimes – secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign “elements” – with maximum prison sentence. perpetual. The law allows Chinese state security agents to operate in Hong Kong, where they can try cases, arrest people and send them to the continent for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.
Since the law was passed, authorities have used it to arrest many opposition politicians, activists and journalists, as well as to restrict freedom of speech and ban protest slogans – leading some to hold up blank posters. In an effort to eliminate dissent, the authorities cracked down on art and education, censoring books and curricula and firing teachers.
“It is a totalitarian effort to control Hong Kong that we are witnessing,” spreading a climate of fear, uncertainty and helplessness, says Kenneth Chan, associate professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.
In late July, Mr. Leung and 11 other pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from running for the Legislative Council elections scheduled for September. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam – selected by a 1,200-person pro-Beijing committee – later postponed the election, citing the pandemic.
In October, in his last tweets before his arrest, Leung commented on worrying changes at his own university, where professors with strong ties to the Communist Party of China were taking over research and development. “This should signal the end of academic freedom and institutional autonomy at HKU,” he wrote, but “I am confident that the HKUers will continue to fight.”
Distracted Democracies
The city’s rapidly deteriorating sense of autonomy is palpable, residents say. “The whole atmosphere … has gotten worse in the last six months,” says Professor Chan. “People still have a very clear mind. They know what’s going on. What they don’t know is what will happen to them ”.
With the world in disarray with the pandemic and populist challenges to democracy, Beijing has been encouraged, analysts say, and Hong Kong war activists like Leung need international support more than ever. Many advocates have asked the United States and its allies to challenge Beijing over human rights violations in Hong Kong. Police raids last week included the national security arrest of US citizen John Clancey, president of the Asian Commission on Human Rights, who is treasurer of a pro-democracy group involved in last summer’s primaries.
Another important step, experts add, is that democratic countries open their doors to Hong Kong immigration more. A new British visa allows certain Hong Kong residents to work and study in the UK for five years and then apply for citizenship.
“Lifeboat programs” that offer a safe haven are especially important for those who are less wealthy, says Dr. Cheung, who has classmates among the prisoners last week. “It is the middle and lower classes that will bear the brunt of Beijing’s retributions, but I see no significant effort by any country to establish a life-saving scheme for these people,” he said. “I never plan to go back.”
For Leung, this exit route may already be closed. Once arrested, even if released on bail, Hong Kong activists must hand over their passports and report regularly to the police. “Only those people who are not on the regime’s radar can emigrate,” says Professor Hui.
As Hong Kong residents prepared for Beijing’s crackdown last year, they talked about “how to prepare for the approaching totalitarian era,” she says – examining how people survived in Eastern Europe in the Soviet era, for example. . “Even if you can’t speak to other supporters, at least make eye contact,” she says, “continue to make friends and dedicate time to community service, keep civil society alive and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.”
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