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Without Reform, Further Violence Is Likely in Hong Kong

03 Jul 2019
By Professor David Zweig
Protesters storm Legco, the Hong Kong legislative chamber. Source: Flickr - Studio Incendo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The animosity that motivated this week’s violence in Hong Kong runs much deeper than dissatisfaction over a failed extradition bill. While many Hong Kongers believe violence undermines their economic future, the young people who trashed the legislative chamber of the city see no future in the institutions and economic opportunities offered to them.

It has been over 50 years since political violence of this scale rocked Hong Kong. That says something about the level of disaffection that the young people of Hong Kong feel today for the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.

If one thinks of political engagement as a continuum, running from total passivity and inaction, to widespread social unrest (what Beijing likes to call “chaos”), many young people in Hong Kong moved away from peaceful protests and marches and engaged in “civil disobedience” in September 2014, when the protest movements Occupy Central or the Umbrella Movement held the main thoroughfare in Hong Kong captive for 79 days. The city’s young people opposed the electoral system Beijing was offering, where everyone could vote but Beijing would decide who could run. Under great pressure from their young constituents, pro-Democracy members of the local Legislature (Legco) voted down this form of partial democracy.

Economic issues were also raised: particularly the lack of affordable housing, stiff job competition from Mainland students who study in Hong Kong and stay and the billions of Hong Kong dollars being spent by the local government to integrate Hong Kong more deeply into China through enormous infrastructure projects, rather than on Hong Kong’s citizens. But even after the young people withdrew peacefully, the Hong Kong government did not upgrade its social policies.

Worse, the political situation deteriorated. After democratic candidates did remarkably well in the Legco election of September 2016, six were ejected for not taking the oath of office in a serious enough manner, ending the pan-democrats ability to veto unpopular legislation. Several candidates who had advocated “self-determination” for Hong Kong after 2047 were denied the right to run, a pro-independence party was banned and any discussion of independence was deemed treasonous. Nine activists from Occupy Central went to jail, including two professors. Also Beijing pushed for a National Anthem Law under which people who misbehave during the playing of China’s “March of the Volunteers” could be fined US $6500 and sentenced to three years in prison. Such events undermined freedom of speech, assembly and association as guaranteed for 50 years under Hong Kong’s constitution, called the Basic Law.

Then Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive, who had been elected by 1200 members of a pro-Beijing Electoral Committee, decided to rush through a revision of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (FOO) and the Mutual Legal Assistance Ordinance (MLA). The first revision would allow Hong Kong to extradite citizens to a territory government with which it did not have an extradition treaty, such as the Mainland. The second meant that when such requests were made, if the paperwork was in order, the Hong Kong government was expected to quickly freeze the “criminal’s” assets. Lam claimed her decision was motivated by sympathy for the parents of a Taiwanese woman murdered by her Hong Kong boyfriend who had fled back to Hong Kong, which has no extradition treaty with Taiwan. But in fact, Lam saw this as a chance to ingratiate herself with President Xi Jinping, as the new laws would help Beijing get its hands on a reported 300 Mainland financial criminals who were safely ensconced in Hong Kong.

As these revisions would lower the barrier between Beijing’s and Hong Kong’s legal systems, which were supposed to remain separate under “one country, two systems.” most Hong Kongers felt deeply threatened. The local and overseas chambers of commerce, the legal community, professionals, foreign consulates and foreign firms, were all in an uproar.  Yet when these revisions had been proposed to Lam’s Executive Committee (Exco) on 29 January, not one member had spoken against the policy.

From January through late May, supporters and opponents of the bill jockeyed for support. But even the director of the Mainland’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, who publicly supported the bill, cautioned Mrs. Lam to take citizens’ concerns into account.

But as the scale of opposition intensified, so did Mrs. Lam’s stubbornness. From her perspective, opponents were ill-informed and would realize their errors after no massive sweep of dissidents followed the passing of the bill.

However, her determination to undertake the second reading of the bill on 12 June led young people to surround Legco. Based on “marginal violence theory,” they tried to provoke the police to respond violently without resorting to violence themselves. But as a small number of protestors attacked police with bricks and metal spears, the police were set loose and, using rubber bullets, tear gas and truncheons, successfully drove the protestors away from Legco but at the cost of their own popularity and community respect. Calls for an investigation into the use of excessive force by the police echoed through much of the community. Instead, the government accused the protestors of “rioting,” which can carry up to 10 years in jail.

The political violence, while shockingly uncharacteristic of Hong Kong’s adherence to the “rule of law,” is what actually stopped the second reading of the bill: not social outrage, a million person march, or civil disobedience. The violence also convinced Lam to apologize for not listening to the people. Still, she rejected protestors’ demands for an investigation into police violence on 12 June, the firing of some government minister, that the confrontation on the 12th not be called a “riot” (and those arrested be released) and that the bill be totally withdrawn. Although two million people took to the streets on 16 June, she made no further concessions.

But in what society would a protest by 25 percent of the population following an admitted government mistake not create some “fall guy?” Worse, she showed only political violence would get her to respond.

Then on 1 July, the 22nd anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China, the “tale of two protests” – large, peaceful marchers and a growing group of angry youth—became more obvious when 500,000 people marched peacefully, at times only a quarter mile from a thousand or more, yellow helmeted confrontationists who were trying to break into Legco.

While many Hong Kongers believe violence undermines their economic future, the young people who trashed Legco see no future in the institutions and economic opportunities offered to them. While 2047, when Beijing will no longer be legally bound to maintain “two systems,” is still 28 years away, the young people who raged on 1 July do not want to make their careers, educate their children and reach middle age under an increasingly authoritarian political system. If political violence and jail terms are necessary to hold back Beijing’s political encroachment, they say, so be it.

Before Occupy Central in 2014, I warned Chinese officials that they should respond to civil disobedience or else young people in Hong Kong might turn violent. Since they opposed civil disobedience then, how are they likely to respond to such violence? Rumours are circulating that Lam gave serious consideration to asking that the People’s Liberation Army troops stationed in Hong Kong be sent in. Fortunately that did not happen. But if Lam resorts to a crackdown and does not seriously try to placate Hong Kong society – perhaps by firing the secretaries of Security or Justice, by convening round-table discussions, or meetings with politicians from all walks of life, engaging with Hong Kong’s disgruntled youth, or establishing an impartial investigation into the events surrounding the extradition bill and, yes, some significant political reforms – further violence is likely, and with it, the possible arrival of the PLA.

David Zweig is a Professor Emeritus at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Director of the Transnational China Consulting Limited.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.