A year ago, newly elected Hong Kong District Adviser Fergus Leung was excited when he stood outside a high-rise public housing block on Hong Kong Island and greeted voters cheerfully. Wearing a white button-down shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, the serious young student from the University of Hong Kong posed questions about trash cans and rent increases and undertook to help supporters and win over skeptics.
But in a sign of how Beijing has dramatically curtailed political freedoms in Hong Kong over the past six months, Mr. Leung and 52 other pro-democracy elected officials and activists – including one U.S. citizen – were picked up early in the morning and arrested – morning attacks by about 1,000 Hong Kong police.
The alleged violation of Mr. Leung and his colleagues? Subversion, because not so long ago would have been a normal political action: the organization and participation in legislative primaries run by Democrats last year. Subversion is punishable by sentences of life imprisonment.
The fight against political opposition in Hong Kong is a clear change compared to a year ago, when a record election in November 2019 yielded a major victory for Leung and other democracy advocates. The election saw pro-democracy and independent candidates control 17 of 18 of Hong Kong’s district councils, overthrowing their years of dominance by pro-Beijing politicians.
That election, which took place amid massive protests for democracy in Hong Kong, undoubtedly indicated that a majority of voters had sought to maintain and strengthen freedoms, as promised by Beijing when they regained control of the British colony in 1997. recycle. in the opposite direction, which gradually curtails Hong Kong’s autonomy and judicial independence and rather promotes integration with mainland China.
Concerned about the popular protest action and the election victory by candidates for democracy, Beijing last June introduced a draconian new national security law that the authorities are now using to eliminate and punish political opposition to a greater extent than ever before.
“It’s a big whip of all the opposition leaders. In essence, anyone who dares to run in elections is seen as a challenge to Beijing’s authority in Hong Kong, ‘said Victoria Tin-bor Hui, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and a native of Hong Kong. “The meaning is great.”
Beijing’s calculation was that ‘if a free and fair election takes place, the pro-Beijing parties will not win, so the’ obvious’ solution was to dismantle democratic institutions and eliminate political opposition altogether. ” says Alvin Cheung, a Hong Kong lawyer and university lecturer now at New York University.
For the gentle Mr. Leung – whose agenda a year ago ranged from planning day trips for the elderly and Chinese New Year festivities, to modernizing recycling and protecting wild boars from his district and century-old bananas – the aim is to a political career now likely to lead to jail.
“There is a great chance that the authorities in Beijing will achieve what they want to achieve: literally the silence of any disagreement, including freedom of speech, including through very peaceful means and formal legal channels,” says Professor Hui. “Hong Kong is fast becoming like the rest of China.”
Game changing law
When Beijing drafted the top-down law on national security last May, Mr. Leung lends his support to Hong Kong citizens who rallied to oppose it – only to be sprayed with pepper by police while protecting the protesters. “More than 300 peaceful protesters have been arrested,” he tweeted, with a photo of himself blinded and spray-painted.
Mr. Leung warned that the law would fuel more radical opposition. “The latest move by the CCP means ‘burning’ in Hong Kong is inevitable, ‘he wrote, referring to a strategy of hardcore protesters known as’laam chau”(Literally“ stir fry ”) in Cantonese, and captured by the slogan:“ if we burn, you burn with us. ”
In a swift, mysterious move, Beijing bypassed the Hong Kong legislature and enacted the law on June 30. Overnight, not only Hong Kong citizens, but anyone, risked being prosecuted for widely defined national security crimes – secession, undermining, terrorism and collusion with foreign “elements” – with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The law allows Chinese state security agents to act in Hong Kong, where they can take jurisdiction over cases, arrest people and send them to the mainland for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts.
Since the law was passed, the authorities have used it to arrest numerous opposition politicians, activists and journalists, as well as to restrict freedom of speech and ban protest slogans, leading some to remain rather blank. In an effort to eliminate contradiction, authorities curtailed art and education, censoring textbooks and curricula, and firing professors.
“It’s a totalitarian pursuit of control over Hong Kong that we see,” spreading a state of mind of fear, uncertainty and helplessness, “said Kenneth Chan, an associate professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.
By the end of July, Leung and 11 other candidates for democracy had been disqualified from running in the September Legislative Council elections. Hong Kong CEO Carrie Lam – elected by a 1,200 pro-Beijing committee – later postponed the election, citing the pandemic.
In October, in his last tweets before his arrest, Mr. Leung commented on worrying changes at his own university, where professors with strong ties to China’s Communist Party are taking over research and development. “This will signal the end of academic freedom and institutional autonomy to HKU,” he wrote, but “I am confident that HKUs will continue to fight.”
Detached democracies
The residents feel that the sense of autonomy in the city is rapidly deteriorating. “The whole atmosphere has deteriorated over the last six months,” says Professor Chan. “People are still very bright. They know what’s going on. What they do not know is what will happen to themselves. ”
With the world in disarray due to the pandemic and populist challenges to democracy, Beijing has been encouraged, analysts say, and Hong Kong’s fighting activists such as Mr. Leung needs international support more than ever. Many advocates have called on the United States and its allies to challenge Beijing over human rights violations in Hong Kong. Police raids last week arrested the arrest of U.S. citizen John Clancey, chairman of the Asian Human Rights Commission, on national security grounds, a treasurer of a pro-democracy group involved in last summer’s primary election .
Another important step, experts say, is for democracies to open their doors wider to immigration from Hong Kong. A new UK visa allows certain Hong Kong residents to work and study in the UK for five years and then to apply for citizenship.
“Lifeboat programs” that provide a safe haven are especially important for less affluent people, says Dr. Cheung, who has classmates among those arrested last week. “It is the middle-class and lower-class people who will bear the greatest burdens of Beijing’s compensation, but I see no meaningful attempt by any country to draw up a lifeboat scheme for the people,” he said. “I do not intend to ever return.”
For mr. Leung, the exit route may have already been closed. Once arrested, even if released on bail, Hong Kong activists must surrender their passports and report to the police regularly. “Only the people who are not on the regime’s radar can emigrate,” says Professor Hui.
While Hong Kongers started last year for the oppression of Beijing, they talked about ‘how to prepare for the coming totalitarian era’, she says – to look at how people in Eastern Europe survived in the Soviet era, for example. ‘Even if you can not talk to fellow supporters, you should at least make eye contact,’ she says, ‘continue to make friends and devote time to community service, keep civil society alive and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel. ‘
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