The protests in Hong Kong have been going on for more than four months now, and no matter how the current crisis concludes in the coming days or weeks, it will mark the end of Hong Kong as we know it.
The protests started in response to an extradition bill that was proposed by the city’s Beijing-backed chief executive, Carrie Lam, in February. Hong Kongers rightfully feared that should the extradition bill become law, the city would be forced to turn over to China anyone President Xi Jinping’s regime deems a “criminal,” including human-rights activists, political dissidents, and others who pose a threat to the Communist party. Worried that the new extradition bill would enhance Beijing’s ability to crack down on dissent and end the city’s proud tradition of judicial independence, they took to the streets in protest.
They came out first in the hundreds and thousands, and then in the millions. In mid June, the rest of the world witnessed 2 million Hong Kongers, more than a quarter of the city’s population, marching peacefully down its main roads and demanding authorities completely withdraw the proposed extradition bill. Protesters from all walks of life participated: young, old, bankers, lawyers, teachers, priests and pastors, civil servants, and more. The city’s youth were the most impressive. They maintained order, distributed food and water, passed safety helmets to foreign journalists, and collected trash, which they even sorted for purposes of recycling. After the massive protests, the world was impressed with the litter-free streets and complete lack of property damage. Hong Kongers’ maturity discredited Beijing’s long-held claim that democracy is incompatible with China’s people and culture.
Had Lam then announced that the extradition bill was being “completely withdrawn,” as the protesters demanded, the crisis probably would have ended. Instead, she gave different statements in English and Chinese, declaring the bill “dead” while actually shelving it until a more politically opportune moment. Her duplicity has fueled the unfortunate violence we are witnessing today.
Why did an extradition bill generate such wide discontent from Hong Kongers? In the more than two decades since the city was returned to Chinese control after a century of British rule, city residents have seen their economy slow and the political autonomy they were promised continually eroded by Beijing. In 1997, the year of the handover, Hong Kong’s GDP accounted for more than 20 percent of China’s, but now its share has dropped to less than 3 percent. Capital from mainland China, backed by the seemingly unlimited power of the Communist government, has come to dominate Hong Kong’s economy and crowd out local investors. Half the companies listed in the city’s stock exchanges are from the mainland, and mainland real-estate developers now own more than 50 percent of the city’s land. James Tien Pei-chun, a successful Hong Kong businessman and former city legislator, warned in April that “when a country can fully control our main economic arteries, when the boss has full say, the kind of good life and democracy that we all yearn for will be much more difficult to attain.”
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