Hopes For A Democratic Hong Kong Fade 20 Years Into ‘One Country, Two Systems’

This week, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region celebrated the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s reunion with the PRC with an official visit by Xi Jinping, the President of the PRC and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. The visit, which was marked by the biggest military parade that the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army has ever conducted in Hong Kong, adds to the growing list of concerns for independence-minded Hong Kongers wary of the PRC’s increasing influence.

As Radio France Internationale reports, protesters calling for the maintenance of political distance between Hong Kong and the PRC were kept well away from members of the visiting delegation. Of a large group of protesters demonstrating in front of the hotel where President Xi was to stay during his visit, 26 were arrested by police for “disturbing public order,” all of whom were later released after threatening an appeal to Hong Kong’s High Court.

For many from Hong Kong, massive political demonstrations like these have almost become a yearly ritual since the former British territory was handed back to China on the 1st of July, 1997. The handing back was conducted under the auspices of Hong Kong’s ‘basic law’ which enshrines the principle of yi guo liang zhi, or ‘one country, two systems,’ allowing Hong Kong to self-govern with PRC oversight for a period of 50 years.  It is the gradual encroachment of the PRC on the political independence and autonomy supposedly protected by this agreement that protesters say drives them to take to the streets to demonstrate.

These protests reached a peak in 2014 with the 3-month ‘Umbrella Revolution.’ Almost 100,000 protesters were estimated to have taken part in the July 1 marches that year, and more in the Umbrella Revolution protests that followed.

Yet, the anger and revolutionary zeal that fueled these yearly protests seems to be in decline.

As the South China Morning Post has revealed, protest numbers are much lower than in previous years, with estimates sitting between 14,000 and 60,000 people participating in demonstrations. Au Nok-hin, one of the key figures in organizing the protests says the “more hostile attitude towards protesters” exhibited by police in recent years has scared many away from partaking in the public protests.

This fear is accompanied by a palpable sense of hopelessness, especially amongst Hong Kong’s youth. Precluded from political participation and formally expressing a unique identity as people of Hong Kong separate from an identity as Chinese, many no longer have any faith that the Hong Kong they know will survive very long into the future. Commenting on an ABC report on this year’s protests, political commentator Professor Joseph Chen noted that “One million people in Hong Kong have foreign passports or rights of abode,” warning that Hong Kong faced mass migration of its best and brightest elsewhere.

Clearly, more needs to be done to reassure Hong Kongers that there is a future for the vibrant, free civic culture that the political freedoms it enjoys has cultivated. Attempts to force people from Hong Kong to relegate their unique identity as Hong Kongers to second in importance to their Chinese nationality is extraordinarily insensitive, and dismissive of Hong Kong’s distinctive history. If more is not done to protect this identity and the freedom of political expression underlying it, this identity may cease to exist.

Matthew Bucki-Smith

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