During my visit in San Francisco in October 2019, I happened to witness a protest by Hong Kong dwellers in the Bay Area. A mall in downtown was occupied to draw Californians’ attention to the current situation in the city. I had read several articles and comments about the whole event, however, to observe a real protest in person was a totally unlike experience. It seemed that all the stories and political conflicts, whose authenticity remained inconvincible, suddenly came true, living vividly just before your eyes. This protest was an epitome of what was going on.
As one of the most important cities all over the world, Hong Kong is known for its prosperous trading market and freeport as a crucial economic center in the East Asia. After the cession of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, the UK had taken charge of the city even since until 1997. At that year UK and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, who claimed that Hong Kong would remain highly independent and keep its original lifestyle in the next 50 years.
The political opinion called “One country, two systems” became a basic national policy at this time and was used by the same way in the return of Macau in 1999. The literal explanation of “One country, two systems” is that there exist two different systems of capitalism and socialism in China. Before Xi Jinping’s term, we could say that the two system basically coexist in harmony.
Political problems in Hong Kong can be called the most complicated ones in the 21st century East Asia, whose history with British colonists and the Socialist government in Beijing was totally a mess. The colonization of the modern China, especially Hong Kong and Macau, is always seen as a shame in the Chinese history.
Back to the tenth anniversary of the return of Hong Kong in 2007, the Chinese community was immersed in the joy of the final unity of sovereignty, after a separation of more than one century. Although Cantonese is the actual language, people in Hong Kong were still happy to try to learn Mandarin, especially those who worked in the service industry. Economy grew, life quality never reduced, they started to believe that the return was not that bad.
At that time no one would ever imagine how the situation there could turn to be so chaotic and violent ten years after.
Here’s a timeline about all the protests of Hong Kong from 2019 to mid-2020. In pictures we can see thousands of people blocking the area of Central and Admiralty, Hong Kong Island. It was once a peaceful protest and then it became a violent confrontation with the police. In the late 2019, the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement had reached its peak and caused several deaths and injuries.
What is Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement? And why did Hong Kong react to it so intensively?
In February 2018, Hong Kong man Chen Tongjia killed his girlfriend Pan Xiaoying in Taiwan and abandoned her body in a suitcase in New Taipei City. Because the man had returned to Hong Kong, the Hong Kong police cannot prosecute for murder, which had triggered heated discussions among netizens. The murder case led to the fact that although Hong Kong has signed long-term fugitive extradition agreements with 20 countries, there are loopholes in mutual legal assistance with the Republic of China(The actual regime in Taiwan, not Mainland China). In response to this murder case, the Government of the Hong Kong had promoted a draft of Extradition Law Amendment Bill, stating that the amendments are aimed at filling judicial loopholes.
This led to huge controversy because Hong Kong people believed that this amendment could enable Hong Kong people who violated mainland China laws to be extradited to the mainland for trial. The great untrust about Beijing was the origin of all the protests.
Several events have enlarged this untrust, and the Causeway Bay Bookstore Event was the most famous one.
The disappearance of employees of the Causeway Bay Bookstore was an incident in which five people from the Causeway Bay Bookstore disappeared one after another in 2015. Unlike others who disappeared in mainland China or Thailand, Li Bo, one of these employees, disappeared in Hong Kong. He received widespread attention from Hong Kong and Macau communities, questioning whether he was forcibly taken from Hong Kong to mainland China, and whether he was involved in cross-border abduction by official Chinese officials. The incident caused Hong Kong people to worry about the destruction of “one country, two systems” and personal freedom.
We can see what Hong Kong people are concerning about.
From early 2019 to mid-2020, the protestors had made different slogans during different periods, and the most influential one was “Five demands, not one less”. What are these five demands?
1. The draft amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance was fully withdrawn
2. Withdraw the “riot” characterization
3. Repeal all charges against demonstrators
4. Establish an independent investigation committee to thoroughly investigate the abuse of power by the police force
5. “True double universal suffrage” will be implemented immediately
According to an interview of South China Morning Post(a singaporean newspaper) with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong , he claimed that the actual meaning of the so-called five major demands is no different from seeking independence. However, it is at the same time true that China has promised to keep everything same in 50 years. Everyone can clearly see the dilemma here. In my own opinion, the policy of “One country, two systems” was a failure. The Hong Kong problem should be settled at the same time it was returned.
Hong Kong residents had shown great hostility towards the Beijing government and mainland Chinese. Several violent acts towards mainland tourists were reported in 2019, which had deepened the hostility between the two sides. The Beijing government had misjudged this hostility, whose attitude was sort of ambiguous at the first time. According to the Chinese news media, we could clearly tell that Beijing thought there were only a small group of Hong Kong people who were not satisfied about the current situation. Beijing even called the “silent majority” to stand out to stop these violent acts who had strongly disturbed the city’s daily order.
Was there a silent pro-Beijing majority in Hong Kong? A local election was hold in 2019 and the opposition triumphed. I noticed that all the Chinese media stopped to report about Hong Kong after the results came out. It was a sign released by Beijing that they were shocked by the true situation.
This obviously hurt the feelings of the mainlanders, who have always treated Hong Kong people as their compatriots. Mainlanders know that Hong Kong people are sort of the “first class citizens”, who don’t need to pay tax to Beijing, have more rights than other local governments, and use a different passport that can enter freely 165 countries(only about 70 countries for a PRC passport). Feelings of hatred and betrayal can be seen everywhere on social media.
Personally, I was lucky enough to have access to different information sources, some of which were blocked in mainland China. When the protest was in its most intense time, I read tons of BBC news reports and comments written by Hong Kong residents on Twitter. Official medias in China also gave their opinions too. I found it astonishing that people can tell the same story so differently.
Normally, educated youngsters in China had a natural distrust towards Chinese official media. We thought the truth might be distorted because official media always had a strong sense of political propaganda. However, despite of a favorable impression on the western media, we found it extremely disappointing this time that how bad their journalists can tell a story. For us, the conflict is more like the one in Catalonia, Spain, which is clearly a demand of regional independance, but in the shape of riots.
All over again, the protests were depicted as an act of justice and liberty to fight against the dictator, who is Xi anyway.
This interpretation is manipulating readers by telling a simple “good vs bad” story. It simplifies all the facts, ignores a deep and complex background, and concludes irresponsibly with arrogance. We’ve seen that an ordinary HK resident was thrown on gasoline and burned seriously because he didn’t support the protests. We’ve seen people throwing Molotov cocktails to the street and buring down houses. We’ve seen universities are blocked by protestors and students stuck there have no food. We’ve seen tourists being beated in the airport by those protestors. These were never reported by an English media.
The truth is always complicating. The conclusion should never be easily made.
