OLD AND BUSTED: RULE OF LAW. NEW HOTNESS: RULE OF FEAR.
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to the PRC under the One Country Two Systems arrangement.
Alternatively, it’s Year 0 of the second handover to China in which One Country Two Systems has been changed to One Country Two Nearly Identical Systems.
Which means I might go to jail for posting this. Or not. Let’s see, shall we?
1. As expected, Beijing approved and enacted its national security law (NSL) for HK yesterday. Characteristically, they released the text of the national security law last night. In the middle of the night. In Chinese only. And only after the law was already in force.
Several people have already translated it into English. You can read this explainer if you like, or this more detailed translation.
Anyway, for the most part it's as bad as we suspected. And even where it doesn't sound so bad, there are two caveats: (1) the wording is intentionally vague to allow for very loose interpretation of what counts as an offense, and (2) the law basically says that Beijing has final say on what does and doesn't count, and that the law supersedes any HK law it might come into conflict with.
So for all intents and purposes all of the human rights violations that regularly happen in mainland China in the name of national security can now happen here.
Carrie Lam, for one, seems mighty pleased.
As well she should - Beijing has fixed the protest problem she created in the first place, and now she can go around blathering about how HK is harmonious and safe now that all political opposition has been suppressed.
2. The chilling effect is real - even before the details of the law was revealed, some people were taking cover. Which evidently was the point. Anyway, two of the opposition parties founded after the 2014 umbrella occupation have disbanded, some protesters are deleting their Twitter accounts, church leaders who opposed the NSL have deleted their posts, some “yellow economy” (pro-protest) restaurants have closed, and Chickeeduck is being evicted from a mall. And all that before we even knew what was in the law.
President Xi Jinping is smiling so hard right now his face may just freeze that way.
3. The HK police are also happy because why wouldn’t they be? They’ve already been greenlighted to do anything they want to anyone they don’t like.
4. Carrie Lam’s predecessor CY Leung is so happy he’s now offering bounties of up to HK$1 million for anyone who provides clues that aid the arrest of "national security law offenders", or to those who have information on "anyone who has fled the city".
Put another way, CY sees the NSL as his ticket to get revenge on every last pro-Democracy politician and activist who gave him crap while he was CE. (Indeed, a lot of his sideline commentary in the last year has included everything from the usual foreign conspiracy theories and saying the police should use even more violence on protesters to hoping the NSL would be retroactive to the point where anyone who staged a protest during his admin would get life in prison.)
5. Since 2003, we’ve typically marked July 1 with two activities: (1) a flag-raising ceremony that no one attends unless they’re paid to be there and (2) an all-purpose protest march covering whatever grievances the people have that year.
The latter is now illegal under the NSL, although police had already banned this year’s march under the COVID-19 social distancing rules that at this point exist solely for the purpose of enabling police to ban protests. Maybe now that they don’t need that excuse, they’ll drop the rules altogether?
Activists are determined to march anyway. It would be great if 2 million people (or more) showed up, though that’s unlikely. Anyway, the police have already prepared brand new warning flags for them.
[The running gag on Twitter is that protesters will be teargassed, beaten and arrested before they can finish reading the warning. Ha ha.]
6. As for what this all means for the protest movement, I suppose that depends on what happens next. There’s been a lot of chatter about how the protesters went too far and ended up accelerating the arrival of 2047 (the year our SAR status was to expire) and gained nothing. Others say the protests have worked in a broader sense because it not only exposed the corrupt violence inherent in the system and proved that the HK govt was always a Beijing puppet, but also forced the sort of crackdown needed to rally international pressure on Beijing, who frankly has been throwing its weight around a lot in recent years since Xi became President.
While we’re waiting for that to happen, I like to think that resistance in HK will take smaller, subtler forms - mini flash mob performances of the alt-national anthem, midnight graffiti, tiny acts of defiance to keep hope alive. But for now I think a lot of people will go silent, if only to regroup and figure out what to do next.
7. Since people have asked:
We are fine, and I don’t expect the current situation to impact us personally for the time being. The general wisdom (such as it is) is that the HK govt/Beijing will slap NSL vengeance on prominent opposition figures first - likely the ones who have already been arrested during the course of the protests. They’re the ones who will be prosecuted and jailed first to serve as examples to the rest of us. The objective is rule of fear, and the authorities will be just as happy if the average malcontents and dissenters either shut up or leave HK altogether - if only because jailing over 2 million people is time consuming, expensive and not the kind of thing you want to be doing when HK’s unemployment rate is as high as it is.
So for the near future, at least, I don’t think I have anything to worry about beyond having the occasional post deleted or flagged. Beyond that, who knows?
Developing (obviously) ….
Under the gun,
This is dF
EDITED TO ADD [3:30pm]: Well that didn't take long. The police have made their first arrest under the NSL. The offense: allegedly carrying a flag saying "Hong Kong Independence".
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