Eroding Freedom
On June 30, some 800,000 Hong Kongers participated in a mock referendum, the outcome of which indicated their desire for more freedom in electing the city's chief executive. China denounced the poll as illegal. The next day, upwards of 500,000 city residents, including many students, took to the streets to protest, vigorously but mostly peacefully, what is perceived as continuing pressure from Beijing to reduce the former British territory's social and political freedoms. Then, on July 15, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying sent off a report to his Chinese masters outlining his suggestions for reforming the city's electoral process; in it he wrote that most citizens had no desire for greater political autonomy, being quite satisfied with the status quo.
Such is the gap between Mr Chun-ying, with his clear priority of meeting the demands of his bosses, and the people of Hong Kong. Protestors' latest frustrations, amply demonstrated as they marched through the streets, were sparked this time by a Chinese "white paper" issued in June asserting that the political autonomy given Hong Kong in 1997 (when Britain handed over power of the territory to China) is a gift of Beijing, that is, at the discretion of Chinese leaders; moreover, a basic requirement of the city's judiciary is "loving the country", with a duty to "be patriotic" - clearly inconsistent with Hong Kong's common-law English system that regards judicial independence as fundamental. All this seems to suggest that China is rapidly moving ever further away from The Basic Law - under which Hong Kong has been governed since 1997 - which provides a formula of "one country, two systems". The Law describes universal suffrage in the election of the city's leader and legislative council by 2017 as its "ultimate aim", compared with the current system wherein candidates for chief executive are chosen by a pro-Beijing committee of 1,200 members who then also elect the leader.
Perhaps the clearest evidence that China intends to win its fight with the pro-democracy forces within Hong Kong is the emergence of an increasingly docile local press which, while still freer than its mainland counterparts, seems ever more willing to pull its punches. For example, the June Chinese white paper, which in an earlier era would have been slammed by virtually all mainstream newspapers in the territory as political sham, was instead (with one or two exceptions) treated in remarkably neutral fashion. No doubt this reflects recent Beijing-inspired management shake-ups at several news organizations, to say nothing of outright violent incidents of intimidation - the editor of Ming Pao, Kevin Lau, for example, was fired in January, then a month later nearly killed in a knife attack by a triad gang.
But if the press is backing away, the people are not. Social media, still uncensored in Hong Kong, are humming. Mass, grass-roots demonstrations can be expected to become the norm as the 2017 deadline for universal suffrage in Hong Kong draws nearer. That such a highly-developed society will simply give in to a far-off central authority, intent on suppressing local freedoms, stretches the imagination. Beijing's game plan is likely to include more bullying, setting the stage for what could be one of this century's epic battles for self-expression, and more broadly, political and economic self-determination. How, and if, Britain, and America, decide to involve themselves, will be equally epic.