Hong Kong gov’t uses 2019 protests to justify new security legislation without fully learning from them
Hong Kong Free Press
For months during 2019, Hong Kong was rocked by increasingly violent anti-government protests. Demonstrators focused initially on an unpopular extradition bill that the government seemed determined to legislate despite strong opposition.
Authorities eventually withdrew the bill, but by that time street rallies drew protesters numbering in their hundreds of thousands who called for “five demands and not one less.” These demands included a kind of universal suffrage, which for many protesters meant popular, not authority-controlled nominations. The Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, identifies “universal suffrage” as a goal of Hong Kong’s political development.
The battle to own the narrative about what happened then is now in high gear. Authorities have restated their position in a consultation document on implementing further security legislation as stated in Article 23 of the Basic Law.
The official view is generally disseminated via editorials, press releases, official documents, press conferences, trial prosecutions, and public speeches. Authorities have refused to hold an independent inquiry into the events of 2019. Such an inquiry would include the government’s role in triggering the protests.
Following the 1966 riots in Hong Kong, colonial authorities held an inquiry and then changed course, in part based on their understanding of the protest.
The government justifies its specific Article 23 proposals by referencing mainland Chinese law, overseas law, and through a partial and one-sided reading of the 2019 anti-government protests. The consultation document is, then, a mix of politics and law. Because of its prominence in the consultation document, the authorities’ characterisation of the 2019 protests deserves careful reading.
The official interpretation of the 2019 “social chaos” is incomplete and one-sided, focusing only on the behaviour of minorities, who, uninfluential, failed to sway authority. Endlessly repeated, the government characterises the events as “black-clad violence,” “colour revolution,” and “insurrection.”
Even “soft resistance” makes an appearance, still undefined. These characterisations appear to be a mix of police and pro-establishment political elite perceptions, led by a Chinese Communist Party verdict, delivered without a publicly available investigation.
For the hundreds of thousands who participated in the many legal protests and demonstrations in the second half of 2019 these characterisations may be unrecognisable. The broad conclusions are mostly delivered without any serious publicly available scrutiny or review. Officials seek to own the 2019 narrative. They attribute to the majority the motives and behaviour of a minority, a logical fallacy.
Pro-Beijing scholar Lau Siu-kai has argued that the 2019 anti-government protests amounted to an unsuccessful colour revolution, comparing the movement to colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine that combined both peaceful and violent acts.
Insurrection, “a violent uprising against an authority or government,” also characterised 2019, officials say. The publicly available evidence shows that as the protests dragged on, they became increasingly violent, such as the sieges of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong in November 2019.
Based on publicly available information, I agree that some protesters may have sought a colour revolution in Hong Kong, that is to overthrow the constitutional order. There is no publicly available evidence, however, that the overwhelming majority of protesters supported such action.
It is also clear that a few Legislative Council (LegCo) candidates have supported independence for Hong Kong, and that Hong Kong people voted in sufficient numbers to elect them to LegCo in 2016. Many of those were protest votes, once common in Hong Kong.
The majority in Hong Kong has never supported independence. Officials also know this. They argue that the national security regime is necessary to punish, control and suppress minorities in Hong Kong and abroad. In this, authorities risk further damaging human rights in Hong Kong. In a curious irony, officials help protesters realise the protest slogan: ‘if we burn, you burn with us’.
The official view apparently is that the Hong Kong people were duped patsies of these minorities who hijacked the protests. Poor, stupid, Hongkongers, officials appear to be saying.
Probably closer to the truth is that there were many sources of discontent in Hong Kong that produced the explosion in 2019. These need to be understood, not assumed, and cherry picked, to suit officials’ world view. Without any publicly available investigation into what happened in 2019, we are operating in the dark, blind to the actual situation in Hong Kong.
Our officials appear to think that material concerns – housing, unemployment, lack of equal opportunity, and so on – motivated the protests. This is undoubtedly only part of the answer. Authorities also perceive that we, largely a population of immigrants from mainland China, were insufficiently educated about Chinese history and achievements.
Hence authorities introduced a re-education campaign and new laws requiring a certain level of patriotic behaviour, such as those pertaining to protecting the national flag and anthem.
But Hongkongers, especially the youth and middle class, also support more participation, accountability, and transparency. Polls show that 41 per cent of respondents are dissatisfied with the pace of democratic development in Hong Kong and that those aged 18 to 29 are more concerned about these non-material issues than other age groups.
Officials appear to have ignored these views. But, to regain control in Hong Kong, authorities have charged headlong in the opposite direction, massively restricting participation, hollowing out civil society, the media, and the LegCo.
From you, the people, officials appear to be saying, we need only a chorus of support. This is a dangerous position. Authorities once again become our trustees and not our agents. Paternalistically, they assume that they know best. Yet we can see all around us evidence that this is untrue.
LegCo could play an active role in holding our government to account. It has the power and formal authority to do this. We do not need a legislature of yes men and women, loudly proclaiming their support. Such behaviour undermines the value of the LegCo as a critical part of our accountability system.
Fortunately, there are many archives, books, articles, films, and videos in the public domain that help provide a fuller, mostly different picture of the 2019 protests. To this may be added the steady but piecemeal drip-drip-drip of prosecution and defense testimony in our many national security and 2019-related trials. That is, we do not need to depend on official op-eds and press conferences where authorities present their limited and one-sided conclusions. Still, to learn from 2019, all of this needs to be put together.
In the Article 23 consultation document authorities offer their interpretation of 2019 without considering the government’s role in triggering the protests, the underlying causes of discontent in Hong Kong, the role of civil society, and the role of “external forces.
The proposals call for further reviews of, for example, police and court enforcement powers. A public inquiry would address all of these issues and provide a fuller picture of what the people of Hong Kong want and expect. Authorities need to know this to govern Hong Kong effectively.
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