Three years after the monster protests and sometimes violent clashes that rocked Hong Kong in 2019, city leaders insist they have restored order. Predicting a prosperous future for its inhabitants, they repeat at will that “Hong Kong is back”. And to back them up, the government has launched a worldwide charm offensive with “Hello Hong Kong”: no less than 700,000 (!) plane tickets are offered to tourists who will visit Hong Kong in 2023.
Far from these sleeve effects, last Sunday marked the 34e anniversary of the June 4, 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Until 2019, Hong Kong and Macao were the only places in China where gatherings in remembrance of this fateful event were tolerated. Same as every year since 1990, Hong Kong has hosted the world’s largest commemoration with a candlelight vigil.
However, since 2020, there is no longer a vigil. First because of the pandemic, but then (and above all) because of the political repression in Hong Kong, which some call white terror.
The organizer of the vigil, the Alliance, founded in 1989, was forced to disband in September 2021 following increasing pressure exerted since the promulgation of the National Security Act (LSN) in June 2020. Several of its officials are currently in prison. And although the government still refuses to say whether publicly mourning the Tiananmen dead is illegal, no less than 6,000 police were deployed last Saturday and Sunday, and around 30 people were arrested, including several figures from the democracy movement.
In parallel, the “trial of the 47” has been taking place since February 2023: politicians, lawyers, academics, journalists, NGO workers and activists are tried under the LSN on the grounds of having organized and participated in 2020 primaries in view of the election of the LegCo, the local assembly. Last April, the Secretary of Security expressed his satisfaction with the “serious work” carried out in the trials in the wake of the LSN, stressing that they had resulted in a conviction rate of 100%… For a number of observers, the trial of the 47 simply symbolizes the death of civil society in Hong Kong, extending to the Special Administrative Region the relentless crackdown that has been taking place in China since 2015 on human rights lawyers, liberal academics , journalists, NGO activists and members of underground churches.
After placing Hong Kong for 25 years at the top of its Index of Economic Freedoms, which the local government never failed to boast about, the American Heritage Foundation decided in 2021 to exclude it from the ranking, saying that the loss of certain fundamental political freedoms had made “the city almost indistinguishable from other major Chinese urban centres” and that the security control imposed by Beijing had shattered the very idea of the “high degree of autonomy” which Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy under of its constitution. In addition, Hong Kong has plummeted in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking, dropping from 18e rank in 2002… at 140e in 2023!
Emphasis on “patriotic education”
In the field of education, according to official figures, more than 64,000 students, from kindergarten to secondary school, were de-enrolled from local schools in 2021 and 2022, or 4% of the school-age population. Also according to the Education Bureau, 6,550 of the 72,374 teachers left their posts in the 2021-2022 school year. Parents and teachers invoke the National Security Act and the emphasis on “patriotic education” as grounds for departure. From primary school, pupils must in fact familiarize themselves with the notions of “secession”, “subversion”, “terrorist activities” and “collusion with a foreign country”. THE liberal studies designed to develop critical thinking have been replaced by a course in ‘citizenship and social development’, which emphasizes loyalty to authority.
Struggling with these massive departures, schools are struggling to recruit teachers and students, and some are threatened with closure.
Last month, Hong Kong media revealed the ongoing purge at public libraries in the territory. In 2020, this first concerned books on civil disobedience.
Today, almost 40% of political books, magazines, videos and documentaries, including those produced by public broadcaster RTHK, have disappeared.
First content targeted: references to the Tiananmen repression in 1989 and the memoirs of Hong Kong activists in prison or in exile.
Three years after the promulgation of the National Security Act, Hong Kong has therefore changed profoundly. The city’s electoral system adopted in March 2021 prohibits any form of protest and entrusts only “patriots” – let’s hear the thurifers of Beijing – the levers of power. Thus, because the pre-selection process for candidates for the legislative elections has become very rigid, only one independent, very moderate, is among the 90 members of LegCo elected in 2021. A year earlier, before the National Security Act and the new electoral code, the democratic opposition could nevertheless hope to win a majority of the seats…
While the Hong Kong government has repeatedly declared that the overhaul of the system ensures the city’s stability and prosperity, it has been the subject of widespread condemnation from international institutions and democratic countries, including in Asia. .
It is therefore not surprising that Hong Kong’s population is experiencing an alarming reduction. It has in fact just experienced its largest decrease in 60 years due to an unprecedented wave of emigration: the number of residents fell from 7.52 million at the end of 2019 to 7.29 million in mid-2022. When you can no longer go to the polls, you vote with your feet.
Should tourists, however, shun Hong Kong? Especially not ! Despite all these upheavals, what is rightly nicknamed Asia’s World City remains an exhilarating destination, with its pristine mountains and its metropolitan epicenter with the largest number of skyscrapers in the world. .