Sun, Jun 16, 2024 page8

• EDITORIAL: A lesson on the CCP’s fickle nature

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  The Hong Kong High Court’s decision on May 30 to convict 14 democracy advocates on charges of “conspiracy to commit subversion” for organizing unofficial primaries to select candidates for the Legislative Council elections is another nail in the coffin of the territory’s claims to be a polity in compliance with the rule of law, and further indication that its openness and liberalism are eroding fast.

  Since China’s response to the 2019-2020 anti-extradition law protests in Hong Kong, where it imposed the National Security Law, seriously curtailing civil liberties by criminalizing anything it considers “secession” or “subversion,” the international community has known that the “one country, two systems” former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) promised would give Hong Kong “a high degree of autonomy” was over. Backed by vague definitions of national security, Beijing appears determined to crush any remaining political autonomy and resistance in the territory, further discouraging freedom of expression.

  The High Court’s decision prompted Jonathan Sumption and Lawrence Collins, former justices of the British Supreme Court and overseas judges at the territory’s Court of Final Appeal, to resign from their Hong Kong posts on Thursday last week. In an article for the Financial Times explaining his decision, Sumption said that “Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community, is slowly becoming a totalitarian state.” Despite freedom of speech and assembly being guaranteed in the Hong Kong Basic Law and National Security Law, “only lip-service is ever paid to them,” Sumption said.

  Sumption saw the potential for Hong Kong to return to being a liberal system under the rule of law, a shining example of what China could aspire to, and once did during its “reform and opening” period, until Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cracked down on everything that could pose a threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) monopoly on political power. “I remained on the court in the hope that the presence of overseas judges would help sustain the rule of law. I fear that this is no longer realistic,” Sumption wrote.

  His disappointment is shared by economists such as former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach. He has long been a China booster, but in February said: “It pains me to say Hong Kong is over.” Beijing has “shredded any remaining semblance of local political autonomy,” which would have a detrimental effect on the territory’s future as a global city and ability to generate prosperity, Roach said.

  The confluence of factors that led to Hong Kong growing into a globally admired polity and international destination for investors, academics and entrepreneurs — its rule of law, political autonomy and relative political liberties — are being eroded. Hong Kong’s future looks grim — low growth, emigrating human capital and a repressive political system. For liberal lawyers, investors seeking prosperity and democrats who saw in Hong Kong a potential for what China could be, Hong Kong is a tragic disappointment. It is an obvious cautionary tale for Taiwan.

  Like international investors and liberal democratic idealists in the first two decades of this century, many Taiwanese once saw China as a source of prosperity and believed that it could evolve into a less repressive, more open society.

  However, with Beijing’s so-called “one country, two systems” offer for Taiwan, Hong Kong is a tragic reminder that as long as China is ruled by a communist party determined to crush anyone who challenges its monopoly on power, it should never be trusted to uphold its end of a bargain.
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