Unlike the frog slowly boiled in water which does not realise that anything untoward is happening, things are changing so fast in Hong Kong that people are only too aware. The slippery slope to tyranny has recently proved to be both steep and very slippery since the Mainland Chinese overlords broke their promise, made in 1997, that no significant changes would take place in the former British colony turned ‘special administrative region’ (SAR) for at least 50 years. This was the co-called ‘one country, two systems’ which would ensure political and legislative freedom for Hong Kong and the right to maintain its own international links. China’s broken promise means that a record 290,000 people left in in the first half of 2023 meaning that half a million people had left since 2021.
China, which exercises tight control over the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo), moved early after the handover to increase its control over the population with the proposed Article 23 to the Hong Kong constitution seeking to implement greater state security, meaning restrictions to freedom and harsher punishments for those who criticise the state. There were massive protests in 2003, then the famous ‘umbrella movement’ protests in 2014, both of which were peaceful. However, in 2019 there were violent clashes between protesters and the police, specifically over proposals to ‘extradite’ Hong Kong dissidents to Mainland China for prosecution. The COVID-19 crisis could not have come soon enough for China as, despite it slowing down implementation of Article 23, this surely helped to keep people off the streets. A period of reflection, in the aftermath of the 2019 riots, has clearly led to renewed enthusiasm for Article 23 and the LegCo has come off the blocks with a vengeance.
Since Covid restrictions were lifted in Hong Kong, considerably later than most of the rest of the world, the Chinese Government has moved apace to strengthen its grip on the legislative processes in the SAR. The LegCo is responsible for implementing Article 23, but this should not pose a problem as the Chief Executive of the LegCo, currently John Lee, is appointed by the Chinese Government and all members of the LegCo are approved by Beijing. In fact, all candidates in elections, including district elections, must now be approved by Beijing. The result has been a dramatic lack of participation by the voters of Hong Kong down to a new low of 23% in the most recent elections. Previous turnouts have been over 70%.
As a periodic visitor to Hong Kong, what is happening seems less like a slippery slope than a series of step changes. Each time I return colleagues, mainly the expatriate ones like me, recount fresh horrors such as their primary school children being taught mandatory lessons in ‘the nation’s achievements under the Chinese Communist Party’. There are weekly flag raising ceremonies of the Chinese and Hong Kong flags at educational institutes, including universities, which staff and students must attend (expatriates are excused) with suspension of students who are disrespectful.
Use of and proficiency in English has declined since the handover, some say aided and abetted by China which, despite the numbers learning English there, has itself been turning its back on English language. There is certainly some suspicion about English language teaching being used as an opportunity to spread dissent and, of course, declining use of English helps to undermine the international status of the once bilingual entrepôt, thus increasing its dependence on China.
Having just returned from a short visit to Hong Kong, I get the distinct impression that this is the last time I will see the place prior to the implementation of Article 23. This week the LegCo has been fully occupied with debating the new security measures which will see much harsher penalties for any activities considered to threaten the security of Hong Kong including life imprisonment for insurrection and treason. Such is the pressure from China to implement Article 23 that the LegCo has fast-tracked the legislation and conducted both first and second readings of the bill within hours of its latest manifestation being tabled.
There is no effective opposition to the bill from within the LegCo. Dissenting members such as Leung ‘Long Hair’ Kwok-hung have long since been prevented from standing. Long Hair has frequently been in prison. There has been some straining at legislative gnats over wording. Regina Ip, a former Secretary of State for Security and no stranger to criticism over her own enthusiasm for Article 23, has queried the nature of “external forces” mentioned in the bill. Her query is around the vagueness of the term and what it includes when the use of “foreign forces” would have been clearer. However, the explanation is undoubtedly that Beijing wishes the legislation to cover Taiwan which, while it is ‘external’ to Hong Kong is not considered ‘foreign’ in the eyes of China. Ip favours simply naming Taiwan in the Bill.
Along with the unseemly haste with which implementation of Article 23 is being pursued, the accompanying rhetoric is being ramped up. Offenders jailed under security laws can forget about early release; decisive action is needed to “eradicate ‘causes of chaos’ and ‘evil’ forces”; new offences have been created among the 39 included in the bill; and the burden of proof, once accused, will rest with the defendant.
The run up to the handover provided material for novelists Paul Theroux and John Burdett. Theroux in Kowloon Tong envisaged public executions at the Happy Vally racecourse and Burdett envisaged in The Last Six Million Seconds that the handover would provide the opportunity for an horrific crime the investigation into which would be hampered by the Chinese police. The immediate aftermath of the handover was a considerable anti-climax for such catastrophists as, at least for the first few years, nothing significant happened. Burdett’s novel was a work of fiction, and the handover was merely used to frame another of his gruesome crime novels. Theroux was undoubtedly making a point in his novel. But for how much longer will it remain a work of fiction?
John MacNab teaches at a university in Hong Kong.
Stop Press: The South China Morning Post reports that residents may need to have a “reasonable excuse” if they have saved old publications later deemed seditious, according to Hong Kong’s Security Chief. He made the comments to lawmakers scrutinising the city’s Domestic Security Bill after being asked if it will be a criminal offence to keep copies of the now defunct Apple Daily tabloid.
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This is what those the inadequate ppl we call socialists do. Since they are by definition incapable ignorant ppl following such a creed, they interfere and destroy everything they touch since they always know best. Is there one example of anything on earth where socialism has worked/improved things?
Let’s look at the history. First it destroyed France with it’s mad revolution. Then the rapist Marx refined the creed which Lenin picked up destroying Russia, Mao similar in China. Hitler scrubbed out a couple of bits of Marx ramblings regarding property theft called it National Socialism causing ww2. In the so called free west whilst we have avoided revolution and total take over yet we are being slowly drowned by global socialism. This mutation is led by the bureaucratic blob in Europe and angry man Brandon amongst others imposing collectivist green/lbgt/covid ideologies.
Sad times in ‘Honkers’, though it wasn’t always ‘Bottoms Up’ and sweetness and light. I first visited H-K in ’72 and continued to do so a half-dozen times a year throughout the 70s. An ex HM Forces chum was was an Inspector in the Royal H-K Police force, as it was then called. Corruption was rife in ‘Asia’s Finest’ as it was then named, with the standing joke that “H-K had the finest police force money could buy.”
China was never ever going to stay out of Hong Kong ! If you take this situation as an example the same thing is happening on the world stage , we are being consumed ! Please watch Bidens Nation address to see all the useless idiots clapping away at his every word
Kamala’s reaction was particularly egregious.
Strangely enough, when China does this sort of thing and the western world stands back, it’s never compared to Munich. The shrill voices claiming Hong Kong today, the whole of Asia tomorrow, we don’t hear that at all. Putin apparently is Hitler itching to invade all of Europe but Xi jingping isn’t dangerous and we’re not encouraging him by quietly letting China suck Hong Kong in Anchluss style.
I wonder why?
I visited Hong Kong as a tourist shortly before UK’s 99-year lease ended and there seemed to be a certain animosity towards Europeans, which is understandable since they were under colonial rule – and Chinese and British tastes in most things are quite different.
Margaret Thatcher had already agreed not to fight a war against China for Hong Kong – thank goodness – and I am sure nobody really believed the “One country, two systems” promise would be kept very long.
There was an interview of a Chinese girl some time ago where she said everybody knows the rules in China: if you stick with them you will have no problems, if you fight them then you will.
I understand that half the Taiwanese are also in favour of joining China, so perhaps they will go the way of Hong Kong – if USA does not intervene.
China is certainly doing very well economically and its population is climbing up the steep ladder to prosperity.
It is interesting to compare the systems of government between the so-called democratic west and China in the east, whereby the differences appear to be diminishing!
The Chinese being forcibly locked inside their own homes during the famous ‘pandemic’ was absolutely extreme and doubtlessly caused many deaths, not only when the one block of flats caught fire, but the western world was not much better, even partly imposing mandatory vaccination. Was there also mandatory vaccination in China? I do not know.
And anyone commenting here will be aware of how careful Daily Sceptics must be with what may be published and what may not be published. Even “free speech” in the west is constantly under attack.
And who voted in the west for net zero, to abolish travel by car in 2035, for war with Russia, for transgenderism indoctrination and so forth?
Same here. I went to H-K in late summer 1996, and also did a day trip to Macau. The route in to H-K was from Heathrow to the old Kai Tak airport in H-K, then travelled back by train with a few days in Beijing, then via Mongolia, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, & Moscow ( with breaks at those places). Then it was a through sleeping car from Moscow to Brussels Midi, and my first trip via Eurotunnel (to Waterloo International then). It was organised by an agent based in Bristol. The train route through China was on the old line via Wuhan from Guangzhou, which I think a lot has been superseded by a new high speed line.
Should we not also call out the betrayal of HK by Chris Patten.