The following is rather old news, but historical processes are mostly slow, especially when promoted and manipulated by the Communist Party of China. Being “old” or “slow” doesn’t limit their relevance.
Sometimes, however, those operations may take a leap or two, as illustrated by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, in an article published by Sinopsis, a Czech website, in August 2020. Rather than “the beginning of the end of Hong Kong’s freedoms,” she argued,
it was the end of the beginning, the culmination of a deliberate, decades-long effort by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to build a parallel political order for Hong Kong despite the content of the Sino-British agreement over Hong Kong’s future, the Joint Declaration, and Hong Kong’s post-handover constitution, the Basic Law.
The episode you’ll read about underneath is just one of many unspectular, boring and hardly noticeable steps post-imposition (of the “national security law” in Hong Kong), but it seems to give me an idea of what these small post-2020 steps look like.
Message from a bunker
Main Link/source: All Walks of Life from Hong Kong society
It is about a meeting of members of all walks of life of Hong Kong society to study the spirit of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, i. e. the CPC’s party congress in October last year. To help them appreciate the national congress’s feats, Tam Yiu-chung (谭耀宗, a pro-Beijing politician in Hong Kong and a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress) as well as some committee members of the “Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference”, assisted the learners. Tam also “presided” over the meeting. Reportedly, it took place on November 17, 2022.
The Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (in short, Hong Kong Liaison Office) published a short rendition of the “study meeting”. At least one of the participants used his invitation and speech there as an embroidery for his organization’s “Facebook” page, with some impressions of his own, but the Hong Kong press, as far as they cared, apparently only republished the Liaison Office’s text.
The meeting was described as a combination of online participants (probably in various locations) and one main venue where people met in person. No mention was made of the location of that main venue.
Luo Huining (骆惠宁), the Liason Office’s director at the time (and during the introduction and implementation of the “national security law”), had been “invited” to “share his views” (作交流分享). He expressed his hope that “everyone will support the [HK SAR] chief executive and local government to govern in accordance with the law so as to make a great contribution to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and Hong Kong’s long-term stability”.
When reading the participants’ statements (all of the “civil-society” members mentioned are, of course, people who have proven to be “patriots” fit to “govern Hong Kong” in one way or another), you get the feeling that even among them, there was some unease about the director of Beijing’s crackdown agency in Hong Kong.
Ng Chau-pei (Stanley Ng), leader of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, not only advocated trade-union positions, but also the continuation of “Hong Kong’s good traditions of forbearance, mutual support, and a focus on finding common ground” (香港包容共济、求同存异的优良传统).
Luo was apparently happy to tune his statement to an apparently nervous audience, as long as it came without opportunity costs for Beijing – he referred to the “Spirit of the Lion Rock” (狮子山精神), and to something like a “new legend” to be written “Below the Lion Rock”. 獅子山下, a Cantonese television series that started in the 1970s at RTHK and has since been continued by TVB. The soothing message: Hong Kong’s story continues. The unshakable “but”: under the successful implementation of the “one-country-two-systems” principle, which he described as a “struggle”.
Other participants quoted by the Liasion Office – probably all at the main venue – were Dr Jonathan Choi Koon-shum (蔡冠深, Chairman of The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong), who advertised the advantages his institution could provide, such as in form of “diversified and high-value financial services to the mainland” (为内地提供多元且高质量金融服务) and as in its capacity as “a ‘super contact’ (超级联系人) between the mainland and the world”, as well as a promoter of the Greater Bay Area.
Nancy Ip (叶玉如, head of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and Chong Ka-bun (庄家彬, a fourty-plus years-old “Youth Activity Committee” chairman and businessman) also attended. The latter called on the youth of Hong Kong to learn from “the CPC’s exemplary difficult, revolutionary and militant development history” (以党的艰辛革命、奋斗发展历史为榜样).
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Related
Beijing law takes priority, BBC, June 28, 2022
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Probably true. Besides, the only objects people in a totalitarian country can choose for their anger without much risk are…