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Sedition law protest rocks Hong
Kong
By Wong Kwok Wah
HONG
KONG - Too many people turning up to stage their
positions could itself be an offense. That was the first
and foremost response by the government of Hong Kong, a
special administrative region (SAR) of China, to an
estimated 60,000 participants in a peaceful procession
on Sunday to protest the government's agenda to rush
through a law on national security.
The response
was issued in the form of a verbal warning by the police
officer in charge. A written caution was promised later.
The only offense committed by the marchers was their
number, being too many times the organizers' initial
forecast of 5,000. There was not a single incidence of
disorder, which was confirmed the same police officer,
who decided the procession was so peaceful there was no
need for police cameramen to take video footage.
Such a harsh attitude by the administration in
fact was one of the major factors that drove tens of
thousands to take to the street. One piece of Hong Kong
law enacted by the Beijing-appointed legislature shortly
after the departure of the former British colonizers
endows the police with extensive powers to tackle people
who express their views in public. Yet the government is
now proposing to increase police power further so that
they may in the name of state security enter any bedroom
without a court warrant.
Should the government
be allowed its way, there will be much more for
everybody to fear. It will be a crime not to report to
the authorities one's knowledge - or mere suspicion -
that someone has committed treason. The definition of
the crime of treason shall be as wide as covering
garment manufacturers who have directly or indirectly
sold their products to Uighur separatists. If one day
the United States is at war with China (who knows what
George W Bush is looking for as the next
arch-adversary?), every US citizen who has resided in
Hong Kong before for a consecutive seven years and thus
has been granted resident status shall be automatically
a criminal, regardless of his or her whereabouts by
then.
In a modern democratic society, the above
suggestions would be nothing but jokes, deja vu of the
former Soviet Union. Yet in Hong Kong, which proclaims
to be the dynamic capital of Asia, or the London or New
York of Asia, the government was solemn in making those
proposals, among others equally incomprehensible, as
laws to be enacted in the first half of next year.
All the rows originated from the Basic Law, the
mini-constitution for the Hong Kong SAR. The idea of
establishing an SAR to give the former British colony a
special status was proposed by China's late patriarch
Deng Xiaoping. Deng's intention was to allow Hong Kong
to continue its capitalistic way of life without undue
interference from Beijing. A clause, now known as
Article 23, was added in 1989, after millions of Hong
Kong people showed their support for the ill-fated
student movement in Beijing. The clause required the SAR
to enact on its own laws to safeguard national security
et al.
The enactment exercise was stalled in the
first five years after Hong Kong's handover to China.
One reason attributed to the stay of action was the
financial hardship faced by Hong Kong. The real reason
might be that everyone in the administration, from Chief
Executive Tung Chee-hwa down, was well aware that it was
a hot potato and dared not to stir the hornets' nest.
Beijing's patience finally expired as Tung began his
second term. If Tung's administration had a choice, this
row would be pushed back at least two more years.
The financial hardship experienced by Hong Kong
in the post-handover years has drawn the people more and
more to bread-and-butter issues and less and less to
non-material pursuits such as democracy and human
rights. That accounted mainly for the decrease in
popularity of pro-democracy parties and legislators. The
enactment exercise will serve the unwanted purpose of
reminding people to protect jealously their basic rights
and freedoms. That will also dominate the election
platforms for choosing district councilors toward the
end of 2003 as well as for legislators in 2004. In order
not to jeopardize chances of pro-administration
candidates, the only option is to complete the Article
23 exercise as soon as possible, and therefore a
deadline was set for June 2003.
The SAR
government might have miscalculated at least in two
crucial areas. First, it underestimated the underlying
emotion of people who cherish their freedoms. All of a
sudden, bread-and-butter lost its place as the single
foremost concern. Also largely overlooked was the fact
that the business factor would feel scared. Hong Kong
depends very much on international trade. Contacts with
foreign countries have been a way of life for local
business people, even for small and medium enterprises.
They found themselves hard-pressed to accommodate the
underlying tone of the government's Article 23 proposal,
which in effect put the burden on everyone to prove
one's innocence of breaching national-security laws when
contacting foreigners.
The number of people
turning out, to an extent annoying the police,
constituted a voice so loud and clear that the
government had to depart from previous stances of
discarding them as minority. "We note that different
views have been expressed over the government's
proposals. We welcome the expression of opinions and are
sensitive to people's concerns," said a government news
release Sunday evening. Yet the government still wanted
to dilute the significance of the mass rally. "Officials
of the Security Bureau and the Department of Justice
have attended more than 200 seminars, public hearings,
forums, and media interviews since late September to
explain the concepts behind our proposals, and to listen
to people's views," said the government spokesman.
Government officials who found themselves much
disturbed by Sunday's TV news coverage could gain some
comfort in Monday's Chinese press. Among the 10
general-news Chinese dailies, only one paper, the Apple
Daily, carried the mass rally on the front page. Two
gave the front page to advertising and allowed the rally
on the inside front page. Others ran as the lead story a
car accident involving a TV artiste but with no fatality
or serious injury at all. The government has good reason
to remain adamant.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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