Xi’s bombast on Hong Kong a lie

There are two contradictory messages from Hong Kong in the 25th anniversary year of its handover to China by Britain. There was celebration of the event on a large scale on July 1 in the city, which is a special administrative region of China, but there was also sombre reflection on what it has lost after reunion with China. Many residents of Hong Kong had not looked forward to the transfer. The large-scale migration of people who could afford to leave the city showed the apprehensions many residents had about life under Chinese rule. These apprehensions have come true with the curtailment of many freedoms and with the city fast moving towards becoming another province of China. This is against the promise made by China to the people of Hong Kong and to Britain at the time of transfer in 1997.

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The promise made in the “one country, two systems” policy was that Hong Kong’s civil liberties and democratic governance system as it existed then would continue for at least 50 years after its transfer to Chinese rule. But halfway down the line, Hong Kong is close to being a police state. Though Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which was agreed upon at the time of the transfer, still exists in name, it has been made a dead letter after imposition of the National Security Law in the wake of the pro-democracy protests in 2019. The National Security Law is a punitive code that does not brook dissent. Hong Kong has a captive parliament now which has only pro-China legislators. Any decision of parliament can also be vetoed by Beijing. Hong Kong, which once had a free press, ranks low in the world press freedom index now. Its Chief Executive, John Lee, is a former security chief who had overseen the controversial extradition law in 2019.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong on the occasion of the 25th anniversary and declared that Hong Kong had “risen from ashes” and “become truly democratic after coming under the control of patriots.” The importance China attaches to Hong Kong can be seen from the fact that Xi chose to visit the city on the occasion. The last time he visited Hong Kong was in 2015, when street protests were alive. There are no protests now because most of the protesters and potential protesters are in jail. Hong Kong’s economy has also suffered. Its GDP, which accounted for over 18 per cent of China’s GDP once, is only about 2 per cent of it now. So, Xi’s assertions about democracy and his claim that China’s Hong Kong policy has been generally approved by the international community is far from the truth.