Anti-government protesters strew a street in Mong Kok with broken bricks after the police banned a planned march on October 20, 2019. Photo: Felix Wong
Opinion
Opinion
by Vijay Verghese
Opinion
by Vijay Verghese
Protests, national security law and Donald Trump’s response show Hong Kong must act quickly to rebuild confidence
Hongkongers acted as one to contain the spread of Covid-19. This pro-Hong Kong spirit is called for to ensure safeguards are built into the national security law to reassure the international community
Frustrated by an increasingly hostile United States, the Covid-19 pandemic, a continuing protest deadlock in Hong Kong, and Taiwan’s dismissal of its “one country, two systems” overture, China has hit out on several fronts. From border skirmishes with India to tough posturing in the South China Sea, Beijing is flexing its muscles with a new go-it-alone resolve.
On May 28, China’s National People’s Congress voted to pass on a weighty task to its Standing Committee – “establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the Hong Kong special administrative region to safeguard national security”. While Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law requires the city to enact its own national security laws, Beijing has pre-empted the city’s legislature.
Hongkongers will simply have to come to terms with this fait accompli. That matters came to such a pass is due to a maladroit government that has clearly abdicated its de jure role, protesters caught up in revolutionary fantasy and a pan-democrat camp preoccupied with unproductive filibustering.
Greatly troubling is the pan-democrat silence over black-shirt vandalism, which even one-time supporters of the youthful movement have found hard to countenance. This was a tactical misstep. Supporting democratic initiatives to strengthen institutions and the rule of law while denouncing violence would have made the movement’s case stronger and eliminated an obvious casus belli.
Pan-democrat legislators lost the ability to productively shape and direct the groundswell of street anger. This has severely limited the city’s ability to play a substantial role in charting its own future with a “high degree of autonomy”.
Legislative Council security guards hold back a group of pan-democrat lawmakers attempting to surround Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam as she leaves the chamber on October 16. Lam was unable to deliver her 2019 policy address speech as lawmakers in the chamber constantly interrupted her with shouts and protests. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
With the US intent on dismantling the world order and China’s Belt and Road Initiative encountering heavy weather, Beijing clearly felt the time was right to be more assertive about filling the leadership vacuum created by the US’ retreat from its hegemonic position on the world stage.
That’s when Hong Kong was hurled under the bus. US bluster and the threat of sanctions don’t change the fact that the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, intended to protect the city, was a no-win from the start, serving simply to wave a red flag at an already red-in-the-face China and to encourage more pointless vandalism on Hong Kong streets. And when exercised, the act appeared to have the potential to cause severe harm. It calls to mind a man declaring he will shoot the innocent child if anyone tries to harm it.
From Hong Kong’s point of view, the issue is not whether it should have a national security law, but whether it should have been the architect of its own destiny rather than a slack-jawed bystander. All countries have national security laws, some more draconian than others.
This includes such bastions of freedom as the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and the world’s largest democracy, India. Macau passed its own national security law in 2009.
02:23
Beijing remains ‘very firm’ on national security law for Hong Kong, says city’s leader Carrie Lam
Beijing remains ‘very firm’ on national security law for Hong Kong, says city’s leader Carrie Lam
But Hong Kong legislators failed to enact a law palatable to the citizenry. Nor did the government undertake a public-relations campaign or meet-the-people programmes to exchange constructive views. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has chosen time and again to ramrod her initiatives through, taking her cue from her Beijing overlords, inevitably displeasing many. Beijing simply grasped the low-hanging fruit so fortuitously proffered.
The argument that there was no alternative to letting radicals torch the MTR and trash the city is gobbledegook. Legislators are elected to legislate. They thrash out things across a table, not across burning barricades.
Given that Hong Kong was built on the bedrock of common law jurisprudence, the envy of Asia and the main reason investors have flocked to the city in preference over other larger Asian tigers with a cheaper cost of living, legislators who supported the vandalism were flirting with disaster.
In the end, there has been a spectacular failure of leadership – of the Hong Kong government, the pro-democracy camp, the pro-establishment camp and protesters. This city needs everyone to be vigorously pro-Hong Kong and not blue, yellow, or some cautious shade in between.
The legislature will need to repurpose its mandate to fight for all of Hong Kong, not just those of a particular stripe. This city is far too small to be divided.
Yet all is not lost for Hong Kong. While upheavals will be a regular feature of life, Covid-19 has made it apparent that people need to follow common directives in concert to stay safe. Low Covid-19 rates here are a citizens’ triumph, not the government’s. Hongkongers acted as one, decisively. This is what defines “pro-Hong Kong”.
Pan-democrats and pro-establishment legislators must come together in a bipartisan manner to look at what safeguards might be put forward to prevent abuse of any new security law. This would reassure the international community, which has a huge stake in Hong Kong as a financial conduit to China as well as for its ingenuity and rule of law.
A bellicose US President Donald Trump may have less impact on a service-economy city where the bulk of trade is re-exports. According to Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, Hong Kong products made for export to the US account for less than 2 per cent of the city’s overall manufacturing and just 0.1 per cent of overall exports.
The effects of dramatic American action will be more psychological than economic, but it is in the mind that Hong Kong’s future battles must be won to shore up its most prized currency – trust.
Vijay Verghese is a Hong Kong-based journalist, columnist and the editor of AsianConversations.com and SmartTravelAsia.com
