69 Final Country Report: Civil liberties in Hong Kong in recent years

Introduction

Civil liberties are a concern of many countries in the world. Although Hong Kong is not a country but a city and a specific administrative region of China, the issue of Hong Kong’s freedom has been mentioned and discussed for the past few years. I am interested to know the timeline with necessary details of anti-extradition protests and the implementation of some National Security Laws in Hong Kong from 2019 to 2022. The series of protests have raised broader concerns about civil liberties in Hong Kong, and had captured the world’s attention.

Before focusing on the anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong, let’s review the historical and political background of Hong Kong. Background information may help us understand Hong Kong citizens’ dissatisfaction with the Chinese government over the past few decades and the development of anti-extradition protests that erupted in 2019. In 1898, Britain leased Hong Kong from China for 99 years under the then Qing government and returned it to China in 1997.

After the New Territory lease ends and the return of Hong Kong by the end of the 90s, Hong Kong’s citizen and organizations were facing uncertain future. By the time, negotiation between the Britain and China resulted in 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which the United Kingdom would transfer Hong Kong if China guarantee to adhere to the “one country, two system” promise to keep Hong Kong’s independent political and economic system for 50 years after the transfer. (Wikimedia Foundation, 2022a) The impending transfer still resulted over a half million people left Hong Kong and triggered a great wave of mass emigration because of the fear of an erosion of civil rights and their quality of life, though with the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

However, right after the transfer, Hong Kong has experienced the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which severely harmed their foreign exchange reserves, as the government have to act to maintain and protect Hong Kong dollar’s currency peg. (Wikimedia Foundation, 2022a) This event was lead by the financial collapse of Thai currency in Thailand on July 2nd, 1997, immediately after the transfer of Hong Kong on July 1st. As the crisis spread, Hong Kong economic and political system finally got shocked in October 1997. During the crisis, Hong Kong authorities spent more than $1 billion to defend the local currency, (Wikimedia Foundation, 2022b) and Hong Kong citizens and organization were therefore able to slowly recover and take a breathe later after the crisis. However, the recovery of Hong Kong’s economic and political system soon was curbed by a global outbreak of the H5N1 flu and the housing surplus social problem in Hong Kong. Several cases after this also had severe effects on Hong Kong, including the SARS epidemic in 2003 right after the 1997 Asian financial crisis while Hong Kong was experiencing its most serious economic downturn.

When it comes to the laws and government authorities in Hong Kong, their legislative matters were related to the China national government and legislatures. For instance, Hong Kong has their government and political structures devolved from China’s national government. And the question is, because of this special type of regulation on both Hong Kong’s economic and political systems, when will the potential risks finally come to the surface? Once these potential policy problems come to the surface and erupt, how terrible can the triggered series of social problems be by that time?

Body Part

Timeline of Anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong

The story of the anti-extradition protests starts in February 2018, when a 19-year-old Hong Kong citizen, Chan Tong-kai, strangled his 20-year-old girlfriend Poon Hiu-wing, also from Hong Kong, during their vacation in Taiwan. Later, after Chan returned to Hong Kong, he was taken into custody by Hong Kong police for theft and money laundering. During questioning, he admits to killing his girlfriend. By the time, Hong Kong does not have existing extradition arrangement to allow necessary extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan, and therefore the Security Bureau in Hong Kong proposed amending the existing Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (FOO) and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance (MLAO) to allow extraditions for this type of case to Hong Kong relevant jurisdictions. (HRIC, n.d.)

In March 2019, this possible amendments of FOO and MLAO caused great panic among Hong Kong residents, and had raised concerns regarding to civil liberties of Hong Kong citizens. As the first protest activity called on March 31st, 2019 to against the rendition amendments with thousands of people marched to the government headquarters in Admiralty, most protestors were there with the concerns of their civil liberties and their quality of life in the future.

In April 2019, though with the protest just held on March 31st, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Specific Administration Region submitted the proposed amendments to the Legislative Council (LegCo), citing the murder case, which is committed by a Hong Kong citizen in Taiwan. The second protest held on April 28th involved more than 100,000 people in the team marched to the LegCo, still called by the institution Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which is was a non-governmental organization that focused on the issues of Hong Kong politics and livelihood, affiliated with almost all pan-democratic camps in Hong Kong. (Wikimedia Foundation, 2022c)

On one hand, the pass of extradition amendments could be a way for mainland China to further impose tight controls in Hong Kong. On May 17th, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, expressed his concern on Hong Kong’s independency and liberties, that the Hong Kong government’s proposed extradition amendments would “threaten Hong Kong’s rule of law”. (South China Morning Post, 2019) Taiwan authorities were also concerned with their possible presence in the upcoming extradition amendments. On the other hand, however, criminal suspects could keep committing terrible crimes without respective punishment. As of the lack of restrictions on extradition, the criminal Chan Tong-kai was only sentenced to 29 month’s imprisonment for money laundering. Furthermore, because of Chan’s good behavior, he could even get a one-third sentence reduction, and will be released as early as of October 2019, even though he has strangled his 20-year-old girlfriend. (South China Morning Post, 2019) On May 21st, the Chief Executive Carrie Lam says LegCo have to pass the extradition bill before summer regarding to Chan’s murder case. In late May, Taiwan authorities said they will not seek the extradition of the murderer Chan Tong-kai and will not accept any extradition arrangements with Hong Kong. (South China Morning Post, 2019) I think this act was perhaps based on the concerns of mainland China authorities to interfere further to Taiwan politics.

In June, things got even worse. Videos and messages that portraits Hong Kong police as “devils” and “bullies” were widely spread everywhere through medias, and the emotions of Hong Kong citizens were then whipped to a climax. On June 9th, about a million of Hong Kongers marched from the Victoria Park to the LegCo in Admiralty, to oppose the extradition bill, even with the heavy policy presented. On June 12th, LegCo announces delay of second reading of extradition bill, and the protesters started to press toward the police, and police started to fire rubber pullet and  Things got really bad after this, protesters asked the Chief Executive Carrie Lam to step down and said that she “sold out Hong Kong”, relevant messages were also widely spread through medias everywhere in Hong Kong. The first death occurred on June 15th, when a 35-year old protester, after hanging a banner from a Pacific Place building in the Admiralty district calling for the withdrawal of the extradition bill, falls to his death. Hong Kong police declare it a suicide. (HRIC, n.d.) Also it is worth mentioning that a jury subsequently declared his death a “misadventure” (The Standard, n.d.) rather than suicide.

Chaos from the protests and abuses from the Hong Kong police forces kept getting intensified in the following months. Eventually, the series of protests approached an end on May 28th 2020, with the approve of the national security legislation on Hong Kong to prevent future secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference.

The use of facial recognition technology by the Hong Kong government to identify protesters

The facial technology was later used by the Hong Kong government to identify protestors, and was also a problem involved in the protests against civil liberties. On October 4th, Lam invokes colonial-era emergency powers to ban face masks, sparking violent protests. (Thomson Reuters, 2020) Violence regarding to the facial recognition were involved as the policy forced a Hong Kong citizen to do facial recognition on his iPhone and violently slapped him in the face. (Mozur P., 2019) In this hand, the facial recognition has became a weapon go against the civil liberties, though having everyone showing their face could help the authorities and police forces more effectively and better identify who committed violence.

Conclusion

These series of events that happened during the past few years must have been a hard time for Hong Kong citizens and organizations. During this period, we’ve also seen people from all over the world and from all walks of life cared about the demonstrations and civil liberty protests in Hong Kong. While many Western countries were condemning on China’s government through medias and authorities, the western democracy’s had not yet taken any actions to back their words, and seem unlikely to “catch Hong Kong when they fall” or preserve Hong Kong’s autonomy. 

From my perspective, there has been many potential loopholes in Hong Kong’s legal and political system after it has been transferred to the mainland China. Although China’s mainland national government has promised to let Hong Kong and Macau to operate under the “One country, two systems” model for their economic and political systems, the huge differences between the system in Hong Kong and mainland China was not ignorable. The murder case committed by Chan Tong-kai seems to opened up and reviews this huge loopholes in the political system in Hong Kong, after over the past 20 years.

Overall, Hong Kong used to be the centre of business in the world, and many foreign organizations and investments gained profits and enjoyed the privilege of doing business in Hong Kong with its special political climate and economic environment. We saw many organizations and business activities left Hong Kong during the past few years. However, the impacts of the imposed National Security Law should be analyzed from long term perspective, and we will need to keep an eye on Hong Kong’s future development.

Source：

HRIC. (n.d.) Hong Kong timeline 2019-2022: Anti-extradition protests & national security law. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.hrichina.org/en/hong-kong-timeline-2019-2022-anti-extradition-protests-national-security-law

Mozur, P. (2019, July 26). In Hong Kong protests, faces become weapons. The New York Times. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/technology/hong-kong-protests-facial-recognition-surveillance.html

Thomson Reuters. (2020, May 30). Timeline: Key dates in Hong Kong’s anti-government protests. Reuters. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-timeline/timeline-key-dates-in-hong-kongs-anti-government-protests-idUSKBN23608O

South China Morning Post. (2019, May 17). US secretary of State concerned extradition bill ‘threatens rule of Law’. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3010590/us-secretary-state-mike-pompeo-weighs-hong-kong-extradition

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, April 3). Hong Kong. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 31). 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis#China

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 9). Civil Human Rights Front. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Human_Rights_Front#Arrest_of_Figo_Chan