when the British Hong Kong To Beijing In 1997, 50 years of self-government and freedom of assembly, speech and press were promised which are not allowed on the communist-ruled Chinese mainland.
On Friday, as Beijing marks 25 years under its rule in a city of 7.4 million people, those promises are becoming thin. Hong Kong’s honeymoon period, when it continued as usual, has passed, and its future remains uncertain, determined by forces beyond its control.
Before the handover, many in Hong Kong worried that life would change if Beijing came to power. Thousands rushed to reside elsewhere and some went abroad. For the first decade, such measures seemed overly dramatic – this bustling bastion of capitalism of china The southern coast appeared to retain its independence, and the economy was booming.
In recent years, Beijing has been expanding its influence and control. Those moves were accelerated by massive pro-democracy protests in 2014 and 2019. Now, schools must offer lessons on patriotism and national security, and some new textbooks deny that Hong Kong was once a British colony.
Electoral reforms have ensured that no opposition lawmakers, considered “patriots” by Beijing only, are in the city’s legislature, quelling the once lively debate over how to run the city. China has installed career security officer John Lee as successor to chief executive Carrie Lam.
Press freedom has been attacked and pro-democracy newspapers that openly criticize the government, such as the Apple Daily, have been forced to close. Its publisher Jimmy Lai has been jailed.
Hong Kong has also banned China’s annual protests on 4 June 1989, a crackdown on a pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, with officials citing pandemic precautions. The city’s tourism and businesses are being affected by the stringent COVID-zero policies enforced on the mainland.
Building Services Engineer, Alex Siu, was born in Hong Kong and only left in 2020 – his parents ensured he would have the option of obtaining a British National Overseas Passport years ago.
Tired of both the Hong Kong work environment and the political situation, Siu moved to Manchester, England with his girlfriend. He is upset for food, friends and family, but doesn’t plan to return.
“I believe there is no hope because the government has absolute power,” Siu said of the deteriorating political freedoms in Hong Kong. “We little citizens, we don’t have much power to oppose them or change the situation.”
Kurt Tong, former US Consul General to Hong Kong and managing partner of consultancy The Asia Group, said the changes reflect growing dissatisfaction with the freewheeling semi-autonomous sector in Beijing. The concern grew when some of the millions of Hong Kong residents who held peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2019 stormed the city’s legislative premises and at times violently clashed with police.
“Things that China found annoying about Hong Kong began to become more prominent, and things that they found attractive about Hong Kong began to become less prominent, and friction built up over time,” he said.
In 2020, authorities began cracking down on political dissent, arresting dozens of activists and imprisoning them for unauthorized assembly, despite provisions that guaranteed freedom for such gatherings under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the city’s constitution .
John Burns, an honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, doubted that Beijing would ever allow Hong Kong full democracy or universal suffrage, goals enshrined in the Basic Law at the time of the 1997 handover.
“Hong Kong was going to be part of the local government of an authoritarian country ruled by a Leninist party. How could this be a Western-style parliamentary democracy?” Burns said in an interview.
He went on to stamp out dissent as authorities crack down on 2019 to help restore stability after months of protests.
“But it is a brittle fixture based on the pursuit of law enforcement and the arrest and imprisonment of all-democratic leaders,” he said, and many in Hong Kong still support the pro-democracy movement, even though They are silent for now.
“We’re in a kind of hellish place. Hong Kong isn’t part of the system and so it can’t bargain like that, (but at the same time) we’re not free. We’re in this hybrid middle ground,” Burns said. “The party has never had to rule a place like Hong Kong, so it’s learning how it goes.”
Former Democratic Party chairwoman and former legislator Emily Lau says she is disappointed but not surprised by the changes. “When you deal with a communist regime, you shouldn’t expect anything. Nothing should surprise you,” Lau said.
He is focused on the future of Hong Kong. The city remains isolated from the mainland, she said. Her friends and associates may be imprisoned, but she can visit them and choose their own lawyers – the rights political prisoners are usually denied in China.
“I know it is very difficult. But I think we do the best to fight for our core values, which are human rights, democracy, rule of law and individual security, and social justice, for ourselves and future generations. Responsible for trying well,” she said.
Chan Po-ying, 66, whose longtime partner and pro-democracy activist Leung Kwok-hung – better known by his nickname “Long Hair”, is serving a nearly two-year prison sentence and a trial on national security-related charges are waiting for. She says that she is pressurizing.
“I’ve struggled for a long time, I believe I shouldn’t give up so easily, especially during this difficult time,” Chan said, “the government and the law gave us these rights (under the Basic Law). Huh. ,
In May, during the election of Hong Kong’s new chief executive, Chan and several others held a small protest demanding universal suffrage. On June 4 this year, on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Chan along with two others stood in a street in silent protest, dressed in black and wearing white face masks with a black “x”.
However, as security tightened ahead of Friday’s celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover, Chan sent a message to Hong Kong media saying he and his group would not protest.
After being called for a “chat” by the State Security Police, they decided that “that day, we cannot do any kind of protest activity,” she said.
AP writer Calvin Chan in London and Hong Kong news assistant Carmen Lee contributed to this report.
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