So Long, Hong Kong

From peak to bleak under Beijing’s jackboot.

Mar 27, 2024

If you haven’t been to Hong Kong, you might as well take it off your must-visit list. Its halcyon days are over. It’s now a fully-absorbed vassal of Beijing.

The Chinese Communist Party and dictator Xi Jinping strong-armed Hong Kong’s puppet government into hastily passing Article 23, a security law that crushes all forms of dissent, defined broadly enough to be whatever the enforcers want it to be. The law went into effect last Saturday. Anyone labeled a suspect can be detained without charge from 48 hours to 16 days.

Non-profit organization Index on Censorship, founded in London in 1972 as “A Voice for the Persecuted,” said: “The passing of Article 23 legislation is a very dark day for Hongkongers.”

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), established on 6/4/20 — the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre — to create a coordinated response to China on global trade, security and human rights, wrote in a statement:

Under the full glare of the international media, and in a matter of days, the Hong Kong authorities have rushed through the most repressive national security legislation in the city’s history.
The substance of the law is eye watering in the repression it allows and the chilling effect it will create. Among other things, it allows sentences of up to 14 years imprisonment if an individual fails to disclose that another person indicates an ‘intention to commit treason,’ which could include participating in peaceful protest or voicing discontent. If a journalist or a due diligence report discloses information that is deemed to be a ‘national secret,’ that person can be jailed for 10 years.
We did not get here overnight. Since the passage of the National Security Law in 2020, the people of Hong Kong have endured ever deepening oppression, while Beijing has unrepentantly and unilaterally violated binding international law. …
Now, four years later, legislation has been enacted which effectively harmonizes Hong Kong and China’s national security systems, making Hong Kong one of the most dangerous places in the world to disagree with the government.

Official commentary out of China and its puppets in Hong Kong has been predictable.

Dangling on a string from Beijing, highly unpopular Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said the crackdown was necessary “to put a stop to espionage activities, the conspiracies and traps of intelligence units, and the infiltration … of enemy forces.” Analysts say this translates to anybody who exercises the free speech rights that Hongkongers knew until 2020, when Beijing reneged on its agreement with the United Kingdom to keep Hong Kong free until 2047.

As Simon Tisdall explained in the Guardian last Saturday:

Beijing solemnly pledged, 40 years ago, to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy. The 1984 Sino-British joint declaration agreed the “one country, two systems” principle would continue in force for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover. China gave its word. Its word has proven worthless.

Look at the great work Beijing’s communists have done with Hong Kong stocks:

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
Stock Index Change (%)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
85 from 2000 to 2020
-42 since 2020

Hong Kong ranked as the world’s number one IPO venue in seven of the last 15 years, but is now in the eighth spot.

Hongkongers say their city is no longer a darling of global capital, but rather the newest Unesco world heritage site, a monument to the bygone era when its future seemed limitless. “This was Hong Kong,” placards might read. “A once vibrant city of dreams and ambition that was ruined by communists in the 2020s.”

A Hongkonger worker for a Chinese state-owned bank told the BBC earlier this week: “The business has been awful in the past two years and there was no major deal at all.” He said his company fired 10% of its staff in June and another 5% just this past week. “No one knows when it will be their turn.”

Last month, Stephen Roach, former chair of Morgan Stanley Asia and currently a faculty member at Yale, wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times, “It pains me to say Hong Kong is over,” from which:

Milton Friedman’s favorite free market has been shackled by the deadweight of autocracy. … The 50-year transition period to full takeover by the People’s Republic of China [has] been effectively cut in half. …
I will never forget my first trip to Hong Kong in the late 1980s. … I was immediately taken with the extraordinary energy of the business community. Back then, Hongkongers had both a vision and a strategy. China was just beginning to stir, and Hong Kong was perfectly positioned as the major beneficiary of what turned into the world’s greatest development miracle.
It all worked out brilliantly, for longer than anyone expected. And now it’s over.

Yet lackey Lee and others parrot glee speak from Beijing, about Comrade Xi bringing the joys of socialism with Chinese characteristics to a once thriving city. Some joy: a previously strong stock market down 42% on their watch. There’s so much joy that Hongkongers can’t take it anymore and are fleeing in droves.

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (CFHK Foundation) was, in its own words, “set up to fight for Hong Kong and its people as China continues its massive crackdown on the city.” It defends political prisoners, free media, the right of Hongkongers to live peacefully under the terms of the 1997 handover from Britain. It reported last year:

The exodus of Hong Kong residents accelerated this year, with 291,000 residents leaving through mid-August, marking the highest level since record-keeping began in January 2020. Almost 500,000 residents have left since the beginning of 2021. This is not surprising, as the Chinese Communist Party continues to dismantle the rule of law and crush basic human rights in the city.

Small wonder that lackey Lee’s popularity sits at a record low, according to the Hong Kong Free Press — which must surely be looking for office space overseas.

Why? Because polling and reporting results is a dangerous business in the new Hong Kong. The New York Times reported earlier this month:

Days after Beijing’s 2020 security legislation became law, the police raided the office of an independent polling institute. It had just released the results of a poll asking whether Hong Kong was “still a free city.”
Sixty-one percent of respondents answered no.

Article 23 copies its definition of “national security” from mainland China, where it is a vague concept covering “major interests of the state.” According Beijing, every facet of life is a major interest of the state. Also appended to Hong Kong is Beijng’s definition of “state secrets,” a list as long as the Great Wall and able to be amended on the fly. A person can inadvertently stumble over one that was not previously classified as a secret.

Maya Wang, the acting China director for Human Rights Watch, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times yesterday, “Hong Kongers Are Purging the Evidence of Their Lost Freedom,” from which:

Hong Kong was once a place where people did not live in fear. It had rule of law, a rowdy press and a semi-democratic legislature that kept the powerful in check. The result was a city with a freewheeling energy unmatched in China. …
Now Hong Kong people are quietly taking precautions, getting rid of books, T-shirts, film footage, computer files and other documents from the heady days when this international financial center was also known for its residents’ passionate desire for freedom. …
The Chinese government wants the world to forget about Hong Kong, to forget what the city once was, to forget Beijing’s broken promises.

Don’t be surprised if a former Hongkonger friend drops off your radar. The new law created an offense called “external interference” to target collaboration with foreigners, designated “external forces.” Such interaction can get a person 14 years in the clink. They could criticize government for this, but doing so would add another 10 years in the clink. Wang wrote that she knows people who have left chat groups because they included foreigners. Staying was not worth the risk.

Foreign businesses are leaving. Hongkongers are leaving.

Who’s coming? Mainland Chinese workers. In an attempt to revive its sinking ship, Hong Kong passed a “top talent” visa program in December 2022. For the time being, Hong Kong’s semiautonomous status within China means that Chinese citizens need visas to live and work in the city — and 95% of applications came from mainland China.

As bad as Hong Kong has become, it’s still better than China. Of course, that could all change with the passage of an Article 24.