The Observer XVI.IV - Reflections on COVID-19: It's Not All Bad

Page 18

Democracy Remains in Hong Kong: It’s Not All that Bad By: Landon Pollock The 2019 Hong Kong protests have likely been one of the greatest displays of civil disobedience in modern history. Throughout the 6 months that the protests persisted (quickly quelled by the COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019) up to 2 million Hongkongers took to the streets, maintaining their civil rights in the face of an encroaching China. I suggest that this story is maybe the best to come out of 2019 and will be remembered for decades to come - hopefully not forgotten about because of the COVID-19 outbreak. What is the Relationship Between Mainland China and Hong Kong? Hong Kong and China maintain a tense relationship, which is described as one country, two systems. Hong Kong is legally a part of China, situated on its southern coast. It was colonized by Britain in the 1840s during the Opium Wars and regained independence in 1997. Due to its colonial history, Hong Kong enjoys far more civil liberties than those in mainland China. The British cession of Hong Kong to China stipulated that Hongkongers would maintain their own way of life until the year 2047, entirely sovereign from Beijing. Hong Kong’s Basic Law (the closest they have to a constitution) states that Hong Kong shall self administer. However, the Basic Law also gives mainland China the ability to appoint the chief executive of Hong Kong. Chief executives are appointed by a 1200 strong election committee, many of whom are Beijing loyalists. Effectively, the Chief Executive the committee wants is the Chief Executive Beijing wants. Many HongKongers are not okay with this and want a universal suffrage system, where one citizen has one vote. In 2017, Hong Kong almost achieved this, however Beijing stipulated that candidates must be chosen from a nominating committee. China would have chosen who was on this committee. Ultimately, the Hong Kong legislature rejected the voting system and the 1200 person election committee remains.

Why Exactly did the Protests Start in 2019?

Supposedly, the bill was prompted by a 2018 case where a Hong Kong man killed his wife in Taiwan. The man fled to Hong Kong, which lacked a formal extradition bill with Taiwan. As such, the man could not be sent back to face trial. The Hong Kong political class (many of whom are Beijing loyalists) used this as an opportunity to introduce amendments that would allow extradition to countries that they do not have formal extradition agreements with- notably China. However, some have called the 2018 murder a “phony excuse.” Jerome A. Cohen, an expert on Asian Relations at the Council of Foreign Affairs said that “everybody knew - who paid attention to it - that this was a long overdue effort to extradite people from Hong Kong to China.” These amendments would give sweeping powers to China, a country that has been known to imprison dissenters who speak out against the Communist Party of China (CCP) regime. Hong Kong has enjoyed freedom of speech for many years and under the new amendment, those who speak out against Beijing would be subject to extradition to the mainland. The amendments were proposed in March and expected to go through the legislature in June. On June 9th, 1 million Hong Kongers took to the streets to protest. A few days later, the bill was “indefinitely suspended.” Protesting and rioting persisted throughout the summer, with police forces using tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets on dissenting crowds. On August 18th, the protest had its biggest showing: 2 million in the streets. On September 4th, the bill was formally retracted. However, the protesters were not yet satisfied. The protests have now morphed more generally into a fight against state intervention by Beijing and full democracy for Hong Kong. Many at this point began to realize that the only way Hong Kong is to ever have absolute freedom from China, is to have universal suffrage in their voting system. page 18


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