Police try to control media personnel outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Court, in Hong Kong, on May 30.PETER PARKS/Getty Images
It was always a long shot.
In June, 2020, months after mass protests propelled Hong Kong’s pro-democracy parties to a landslide victory in local council elections, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to vote in an opposition primary designed to thin the field ahead of a far more important contest.
Since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China, pro-democracy parties had never held a majority in the city’s legislature, despite consistently winning the support of most voters. This was by design: Only half the chamber’s seats were democratically elected, the rest chosen by small special-interest groups, most of which were staunchly pro-Beijing.
But there was a chance in the September, 2020, election. If the opposition won all the democratic races and a handful of the “functional constituencies” feasibly up for grabs – such as those representing teachers and social workers – they might finally secure a majority.
Benny Tai, a constitutional law professor and one of the main organizers of the 2020 primary, felt this could be a way to achieve the goals of the broader protest movement: By exercising their veto power, the opposition majority could potentially bring the Beijing-appointed Hong Kong government to its knees and extract concessions.
The election did not take place – it was delayed because of the pandemic – and in January, 2021, Mr. Tai was arrested, along with dozens of other activists and former lawmakers, accused of breaching Hong Kong’s national security law, imposed on the city by Beijing only a month after the primary.
On Thursday, a panel of national security judges agreed with prosecutors that the primary was an illegal and subversive conspiracy, designed to “create a constitutional crisis for Hong Kong” by undermining the functioning of the government.
Never mind that even Mr. Tai and other organizers admitted that the odds of actually securing a majority were vanishingly slim. Or that the supposedly not retroactive law under which the defendants were charged did not come into force until weeks after the primary was complete. Mr. Tai and his 44 fellow defendants – as well as two whose acquittals Thursday the government is seeking to appeal – now face up to life in prison.
The pro-democracy movement they represented – which fought for decades, first under British and then Chinese rule for universal suffrage – no longer exists. Almost all opposition parties have disbanded or are defunct, their leaders either in prison or exile. Under new rules set by Beijing, all elections are now restricted to “patriots,” candidates who are pre-vetted by a government-appointed committee.
Protests – once a key part of Hong Kong’s identity, with annual rallies that attracted hundreds of thousands – are no longer possible. Even in the rare case where police give tacit approval to a demonstration, organizers are warned they could face prosecution under the national security law should anyone say or wear the wrong thing. For most, the risk is too great: There has not been a major protest since the day the national security law came into force, on July 1, 2020.
And yet the crackdown continues. In March, Hong Kong lawmakers rushed through additional security legislation, further expanding their powers to crush dissent. This week saw the first arrests under that new law – known as Article 23 – of activists trying to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, once marked every year by candlelit vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, the only place on Chinese soil where such an exercise was possible. No longer.
The loss of political life has had an indelible effect on Hong Kong’s character. The city is no longer the optimistic, forward-looking place it once was. Many people speak bleakly about the future and have either checked out or are making plans to leave. Hundreds of thousands have already moved abroad.
For years, government officials blamed the opposition movement for the city’s problems, claiming gridlock in the legislature kept them from addressing key issues such as the housing crisis. But the new rubber stamp “patriots-only” body has shown itself short of new ideas. What initiatives have been introduced – such as regular fireworks shows to promote tourism or a new waste scheme – have not proven successful.
In Hong Kong’s last free election, in November, 2019, almost three million people cast a vote. The turnout was more than 70 per cent, underlining the message that Hong Kongers had been sending in mass protests all that year – one they had been sending for more than two decades, since the city’s handover to China: they wanted to choose their own leaders and have a say in their own future.
That message was never heard. That goal was never realized. After Thursday’s convictions, it seems likely it never will be.
Fourteen Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were found guilty and two were acquitted on May 30 in a landmark subversion trial that critics say could deal another blow to the city's rule of law and its reputation as a global financial hub.
Reuters