On April 1, April Fools’ Day, a court in Hong Kong handed down a shocking but unsurprising verdict, convicting seven leading figures of the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong of organizing an unauthorized assembly. The sentences for the seven will be announced on April 16.
The seven Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders, including Lee Chu-ming, the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, a veteran barrister and former member of Hong Kong’s Basic Law Drafting Committee; Lai Chi-ying, the chairman of Hong Kong Next Media Group and owner of Apple Daily; Lee Cheuk-yan, the leader of Hong Kong’s trade unions; Wu Ai-yee, a barrister and former chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party; Albert Ho, a lawyer and former chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party; and Ho Sau-lan, a social activist and former vice chairman of the Labor Party. Seven people, including Leung Kwok-hung, a member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Democrats, former Legislative Council member and nicknamed Long Hair, were found guilty by West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court Judge Ng Ah-man.
The case, which was organized by the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp in August 2019, was a rally and march, but the police only approved the rally but not the march. on August 18, more than 1.7 million Hong Kong people attended the rally and subsequently and took to the streets, walking from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay all the way to Standard Chartered Garden in Central.
The protests were very peaceful, and although the police did not agree to the march, there was no tough enforcement during that time, so the rally and march did not feature the serious violent clashes that have often occurred in 2019. According to the pro-democracy camp, this is an example of Hong Kong’s democracy showing “peace and reason” in protest. The so-called “peace, reason and non-violence” means peaceful, rational and non-violent. The 8-18 rally and march in Victoria Park is particularly important in light of the many violent scenes in Hong Kong in 2019.
Martin Lee and others said the rally was large, so they were “leading the crowd to evacuate,” but the prosecution disagreed, arguing that the accused were holding banners and chanting slogans, which led to an “illegal march. Since there is no such thing as an unlawful procession in Hong Kong, the charge became an unlawful assembly.
In fact, it does not matter what the Hong Kong government prosecutors say or what the convicted persons say in their defense. What is important is that this case declares the death of freedom in Hong Kong. A few weeks ago, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) established a new electoral system instead of Hong Kong, which not only severely scrutinizes the eligibility of candidates, but also drastically reduces the number of directly elected members, which is tantamount to declaring the death of democracy in Hong Kong. Therefore, the limited democracy in Hong Kong and the original freedom in Hong Kong are now officially dead.
Both Martin Lee and Lai Chi-ying are iconic figures of Hong Kong.
In 1967, the storm of the Communist Cultural Revolution spread to Hong Kong, and the leftist trade unions in Hong Kong began a violent rebellion against the then British Hong Kong government under the impetus of the underground. A large number of trade union figures were charged with rioting. At that time, the relationship between the leftists and the Hong Kong legal profession was not good, and it was not easy to hire a lawyer. Martin Lee was one of the barristers who appeared in court for the leftists and did help them fight off many charges.
Because of this experience, the Chinese Communist Party underground in Hong Kong was quite fond of him. In the 1980s, Li became a member of the drafting committee of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR.
However, after the June 4 Incident in 1989, Li’s cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party ended and he formed the Hong Kong Democratic Alliance, the predecessor of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, and later became the leader of the Hong Kong democratic camp. Now in his eighties, Li is still concerned about the future of Hong Kong, although he has faded from politics. As a leading figure in the pro-democracy camp, he could not stay out of the Umbrella Movement and the anti-Send-China movement in Hong Kong.
The situation of Lai Chi-ying is similar. After 1989, he turned to the media, founding Next Magazine and Apple Daily, and became close to the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong.
Leung Kwok Hung, a socialist himself, once called himself a Trotskyist Marxist, and after 1989, he often wore T-shirts with Che Guevara’s head on them and led a group of activist social activists in street protests. He was nicknamed “Long Hair” because of his long hair.
This group of people, all of whom were once targets of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front, have finally turned against the Communist Party. But these older activists have three basic characteristics: first, they identify with their country and nation; second, they are peaceful, rational, and non-violent; and third, they do not agree with the independence of Hong Kong.
The Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on them means that the “patriotic opposition” in Hong Kong has failed completely. It is foreseeable that in the future, the opposition in Hong Kong will adopt more irrational approaches and no longer rely on the legal system of Hong Kong, but identify with Hong Kong rather than China, which will become a symbol of a new type of opposition.
Hong Kong was once a British colony, and its legal system, in addition to having the characteristics of the British legal system, also retains many colonial characteristics. For example, the police can stop anyone on the street for questioning, the police can charge anyone with loitering, theoretically three or five people gathered together can be charged with unlawful assembly, and so on.
These were colonial laws, and there were no similar provisions in Britain itself, which were “bad laws”. But in the past, the British Hong Kong government followed the British style of governance, so Hong Kong was basically a “good governance” society. The opposite is true for the Chinese Communist Party.
Some of the laws established by the Chinese Communist Party seem to be more civilized and advanced than those of Hong Kong. However, the Chinese Communist Party is not a country governed by the rule of law, and the executive can interpret and enforce the laws as it pleases, so I call it “good law” but “bad governance.
Now, Hong Kong has introduced the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian approach to rule, and the executive has become a government of evil rule, and the judicial system, which is not independent, has also become part of the evil rule, so Hong Kong will be a city of “evil law and evil rule” in the future.
In fact, Hong Kong has always been a unique presence for the Chinese central government, and after 1840, Hong Kong gradually became a Chinese enclave. Opponents of the central government usually gathered here for their activities. Hong Kong was the main base for Sun Yat-sen’s uprising against the Qing Dynasty. Most of the major triad organizations in Hong Kong originated from the “Hung Gang”, an underground civil society organization with a history of over 100 years against the Qing Empire. Sun Yat-sen even became the “Hung Gang’s” double flower red stick.
The red stick is a position within the Hung Gang, similar to the “law enforcement elders”. That is, if someone violates the rules of the gang, the “red stick” to lead people to enforce the law to punish. At a later stage, the red stick is no longer holding a red wooden stick, but has become an internal title. The red stick was tied with a flower on the head of the stick if it had achieved great success for the gang. Sun had two flowers, meaning that he had made two great achievements, so he was a double-flowered red stick and had a prominent position in the gang.
At that time, the main base of the Hung Gang was in Hong Kong.
After the establishment of the Republic, the Communist Party also used Hong Kong as a base for its activities. For example, the Provincial Strike, a joint strike by workers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou against British rule, was backed by the Soviet-backed Chinese Communist Party. That general strike was not really successful and did not help workers’ interests much, but the CCP expanded greatly through this action and the number of local CCP members increased a hundredfold.
Later, various subversive activities in the south of China were often based in Hong Kong. After the failure of the Baise Uprising in Guangxi, Deng Xiaoping ran to Hong Kong to escape, and was only later instructed by Zhou Enlai to go to Shanghai. Zhou Enlai himself had been to Hong Kong many times. Five of the top ten marshals of the Communist Party took refuge in Hong Kong.
At the beginning of the Communist civil war, many of the Soviet Union’s aid to the CCP was delivered to the CCP via Hong Kong ships. A large number of CCP supporters also passed through Hong Kong and were transferred to the CCP-occupied areas.
After 1997, the Chinese Communist Party, which had succeeded in gaining power through foreign subversion, was extremely sensitive to the possibility that others might use Hong Kong to subvert Beijing through foreign influence.
By now, Hong Kong as a modern city was officially dead. The function of the city was primarily transactional. As it entered the modern era, the city’s function expanded into other areas, such as technological development, education, cultural and literary innovation, and so on.
Hong Kong, the city, was once the most dynamic hotbed of innovation in the Chinese world. In the 1980s and 1990s, the most popular singers and movie stars, the most popular movies and TV shows in the Chinese world came from this bullet point. Besides, Hong Kong was also the world center of jewelry design, fashion design, and the design center of print and TV commercials.
After 1997, all of Hong Kong’s technological and literary innovation functions were lost. The importance of Hong Kong singers and movie stars, in the Chinese world, has been greatly reduced, and other jewelry and fashion designs have almost all disappeared.
The Oscar ceremony in the United States on April 25, a major event in the world of entertainment, will be “untelevised” by the major television stations in Hong Kong because a documentary depicting the anti-Sino movement has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Aaron Kwok made a film last year called “The Wind Rises Again,” about police and anti-corruption in the 1960s and 1970s, which was to be one of the opening films of the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival, but the film was canceled three days before its release. The studio said it was a “technical problem,” but because the film deals with police corruption and triad themes, it was rumored that the National Film Board had not yet reviewed the film and needed to revise it, so it decided to delay its release.
Hong Kong’s films are now required to go through the National Film Bureau, the main censorship body of the Ministry of Propaganda, before they can be screened, which actually explains the decline of Hong Kong’s film and television industry over the years.
The slaughter of the Hong Kong film industry, which once produced many international stars and directors, is related to the gradual death of Hong Kong’s freedom, which is part of the freedom of artistic creation, including freedom of press, speech and belief.
Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yangtze River, was also once the most glorious city in the Far East, with a large number of international writers and a literary and artistic creation second to none in Asia. After the establishment of the Chinese Communist regime, freedom in Shanghai died. Shanghai still has the most glorious theater in Asia, but no theater to make a name for itself; Zhejiang, near Shanghai, has the world’s largest production site (Hengdian), but no good movies anymore; Shanghai also has what is called the largest library in Asia, but no creative freedom, and naturally no good writings.
Hong Kong is going through the same process as Shanghai, and compared with Shanghai, Hong Kong may be more painful. Because Shanghai is a sudden death, while Hong Kong is a gradual death.
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