Not long ago, several people, including Law Kwun Chung and Cheung Kun Yeung, initiated a joint signing of the 2021 Hong Kong Charter. This is one of the actions of Hong Kong people overseas who insist on fighting against the strong suppression of the democratic camp in Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party. The third part of the 2021 Hong Kong Charter, entitled “China”, emphasizes that only by ending the Communist dictatorship in China can the value of democracy and freedom be realized. This points out the crux of the problem in Hong Kong, that is, the future of freedom-seeking Hong Kong people does not lie in Hong Kong, but in the change of Chinese politics; Hong Kong cannot achieve true political freedom on its own, let alone democratic governance of Hong Kong, until the mainland political system is changed.
Democracy in China and Hong Kong is a community of Destiny
After Hong Kong was taken back by China, Hong Kong people have been counting on the Chinese Communist Party to keep its promise of “one country, two systems” and maintain Hong Kong’s freedom and limited democracy for many years; the democrats have been trying to maintain the limited freedom of election and expression of public opinion under “one country, two systems” in the space of the Legislative Council. However, in recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has gradually abandoned one country, two systems for its domestic political needs, and the democratic camp’s space for activities has been squeezed and will eventually lose its political stage. The tactic of unification first and exclusive unification later, which the CCP implemented in the mainland back then, has been exerted step by step. Although the international community has repeatedly condemned the CCP for damaging the interests of the people of Hong Kong, after all, it is only shouting in the air, and the limited economic sanctions can neither change the CCP’s practices nor harm the Hong Kong economy.
The people of Hong Kong, who seek freedom and democracy, have objectively become a common destiny with the people of the mainland who have similar demands, and with the Chinese overseas who support the democratization of the mainland. The solidarity and support of SZETO Wah and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China after June 4 had formed a wave of climax of sharing the same breath and destiny. Since then, the mainland democracy movement has been completely suppressed, leaving only a spark in the hearts of some people; while the people of Hong Kong have turned to guarding the limited democracy in Hong Kong.
Recently, former Legislative Council President Rita Fan claimed that the two systems in “one country, two systems” refers to the economic system, the system of financial liberalization, not the political system; because to change the political system, a decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress is needed. The fallacy of her statement is that she pretends not to understand the difference between the Chinese and Hong Kong systems and that the mainland’s economic system is gradually approaching that of Hong Kong since 1997, and the convergence of the Chinese and Hong Kong economic systems is obvious; while the only uniqueness of Hong Kong is that political freedom continues the tradition of British rule, coupled with the limited democratic election of public representatives, which is the only difference between the Chinese and Hong Kong political systems. What she calls Hong Kong’s “open financial system” is not only based on market economy, but also on political freedom and freedom of the press.
The second half of Rita Fan’s sentence points out the vulnerability of Hong Kong’s current political system. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has gradually tightened Hong Kong’s freedom of publication and started political cleansing of Hong Kong people, until it recently changed the election method of public representatives, reducing the room for democratic representatives to a state of insignificance.
From the CCP’s attitude towards international law and rules, we can see that since it can defy international law of the sea and forcibly occupy the high seas of the South China Sea for military use, and can openly trample on international conventions on intellectual property rights and steal intellectual property rights and technology secrets from the United States and other countries, the CCP’s commitment to Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” can be overturned at any Time, and its only calculation is to gain or lose.
Since the CCP made “rise and control the international community” its national strategy, it has made three military threats against the United States in the first half of last year (i.e., naval exercises at Midway, control of the entire South China Sea as a “deep sea fortress” for strategic nuclear submarines, and the use of the Beidou satellite navigation system to achieve precision nuclear missile strikes against the United States), has ignited a Cold War between the United States and China. Both the Hawaii talks and the recently concluded Alaska talks ended in collapse last summer due to the Communist Party’s blatant provocation of the United States. China’s future is now internationalized as the Chinese Communist Party poses itself as a hostile counterweight to democratic countries. Against this backdrop, the future of Hong Kong has become a part of the internationalization of China’s future. When the democratic camp wins the final victory in the cold war between China and the United States, then freedom and democracy in Hong Kong will be solved. Hong Kong people should pay attention not only to the interaction between the international community and Hong Kong, but also to the evolution of the Cold War between China and the United States and the changes in U.S. policy toward China.
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