When Hong Kong was handed over to China back in 1997, a new political model was established – “one country, two systems.” In this model, Hong Kong was a part of China, but had its own mini constitution, its own parliament, and economic and financial freedom.
Beijing has been slowly chipping away at these freedoms, especially political freedom. Even before this became evident, Hong Kong was never a full democracy – instead of free votes, it used an election committee system which allowed Beijing to influence results. However, it is more recent events that have sparked outrage and resulted in the 2019-2020 Hong Kong Protests.
Beijing’s Crackdown
Although the infamous Hong Kong protests were a result of law suggested in 2019, Beijing has been chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedom for years. In 2003, for example, a national security law being discussed would have prohibited secession, sedition, treason, and subversion against the Chinese government.
In 2012, there was an attempt to change the curriculum in schools in Hong Kong to promote Chinese national identity, which the people of Hong Kong saw as Chinese propaganda. In 2014, Beijing proposed a new framework for universal suffrage – the people of Hong Kong could vote for their chief executive, as long as this was from a pre-approved list of candidates. This resulted in the Umbrella Movement protests, a pre-cursor to the resistance the people of Hong Kong showed in 2019.
Extraditions to Mainland China
In 2017, the undemocratic election process elected a new chief executive – Carrie Lam, a candidate hand-picked by Beijing. In April 2019, Carrie Lam proposed a bill that would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China in specific cases.
The public came together to protest this bill, which threatened freedom, gave China undue influence over Hong Kong, and exposed the people of Hong Kong to violence, abuse, and unfair trials. It was only after hundreds of thousands gathered on the streets to protest that Lam eventually called off the bill in September of the same year.
However, by this time, the protests had grown increasingly violent, with police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and at times, live bullets. Police brutality was highlighted using social media and these protests continued well into 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to end.
National Security Law
In June 2020, Beijing took a drastic step and imposed a national security law on Hong Kong. Under this law, dissent of any kind is criminalized. Crimes like terrorism, secession, subversion, and collusion with forces abroad have extremely broad definitions, and can be used to crack down on any citizen who stands up to the authorities.
Global Response
While countries like the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and Canada have opposed this law and have spoken out against it, this isn’t true of all countries – in fact, only 27 countries stood up for Hong Kong at the UN Human Rights Council in July 2020. 53 others sided with China. However, it’s important to note that a large number of countries that chose to support China are part of its Belt and Road infrastructure project, showing China’s power and influence over not only Hong Kong, but the majority of its geographical neighbors.
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