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Article 23 protesters take aim at HK
elite
By Gary LaMoshi
HONG KONG - The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA)
asked me and the rest of its members whether it should
officially participate in a march on Tuesday against
Article 23, the Hong Kong government's proposed security
legislation that could radically suppress freedom of
expression. The march, with the theme "Return political
power to the people", is sponsored by an outfit known as
the Civil Human Rights Front that includes a number of
radical groups that call for democracy in the mainland,
and HKJA was concerned about associating its members
with such a bad crowd.
I replied, "It's
important for HKJA and other mainstream groups to show
active opposition to Article 23 and not let more
marginal groups be seen as the only ones opposing the
legislation." The vast majority of my colleagues
expressed similar sentiments, and the HKJA banner will
fly in Tuesday's march.
Article 23 of the Basic
Law, Hong Kong's post-handover constitution, requires
passage of laws on treason, subversion, and sedition
(see Sedition law
protest rocks Hong Kong Dec 17). Next year, if Article 23
legislation passes without changes, HKJA members in such
a march would be committing a criminal offense. It's not
HKJA that risks running with a bad crowd; it's Hong
Kong.
Noting that the national security
legislation will make the risks to business people's
freedom as great in Hong Kong as in the mainland, and
that the mainland is far less expensive, some skeptics
see Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai gang behind this move
to undermine Hong Kong's special status. However, Hong
Kong people running Hong Kong have made great strides
toward ruining the city without outside help.
Happy anniversary!
The July 1 march
takes place on the sixth anniversary of the change in
sovereignty in Hong Kong. The years since 1997 haven't
been kind to Hong Kong.
The handover coincided
with the onset of the Asian economic collapse. The
change didn't trigger the collapse, though Thai central
bankers thought they could slip their devaluation of the
baht past markets in the midst of the handover hoopla,
just as moviemakers script assassinations during
fireworks or New Year's Eve pandemonium. Hong Kong's
economy withstood the initial blows of the regional
crisis better than the other tigers, but it did succumb.
Government policy has yet to come to grips with the
situation meaningfully, and the economy remains mired in
recession and deflation.
The region's sudden
economic transformation also tied Hong Kong more closely
to the mainland than the political handover. Hong Kong's
role as a center for international finance evaporated as
the region fell off international finance's radar. Easy
money in local stock and property speculation came to an
abrupt end. China, defying the regional downturn to
remain the world's fastest growing economy, became the
only game in town.
Closer integration between
Hong Kong and the mainland hasn't saved the economy or
maintained the city's unique status as the crossroads of
Asia. But over the past quarter century ties with the
mainland have made Hong Kong's fabulously rich, such as
Li Ka-shing - who built Beijing's striking headquarters
overlooking Hong Kong's government center as a gift to
the mainland - fabulously richer.
Heritage
foundations
The proposed Article 23 legislation
conforms to the ideal of Hong Kong tycoons: economic
freedom and severely limited political participation.
Although the effect is essentially the same, it's a
different model from that of the mainland, where the
government is the party and vice versa. Hong Kong Chief
Executive Tung Chee-hwa, like George Washington, would
prefer to govern without political parties. Unlike
Washington, a life raft of mainland loans saved Tung's
family shipping business from ruin, creating
guanxi (Mandarin for "connections") that
undermine the chief executive's putative role as an
advocate for Hong Kong's interests and his assertions
that Article 23 legislation is "liberal and reasonable".
While the triumphant mainland communists sought
to establish legitimacy in a country torn by civil war,
Hong Kong's elite instead focus on maintaining
exclusivity in politics. Heritage Foundation to the
contrary (see Singapore's
capitalism myth, Nov 7, 2002), modern Hong Kong
wealth has its roots in the government-controlled
property sector. Today, insider status also includes
mainland connections. Insiders' main interest is keeping
their cozy circle closed.
This narrow focus
apparently blinds Hong Kong's powerbrokers to the
interests and needs of other business sectors and
groups. For example, Hong Kong's status as a financial
center depends on the free flow of information. Yet the
Article 23 proposals would authorize jailing reporters
who write about Bank of China interest rate policy on
the grounds of revealing state secrets (as done on the
mainland), and expose all researchers to the threat of
espionage charges. Police authority to raid, search and
seize any property without a warrant on suspicion of
treason should frighten people from Taiwan for whom Hong
Kong acts as a bridge to the mainland, as well as anyone
who has ever done business with Taiwan, or any country
that is, was, or could ever be an enemy of the Beijing
government.
A case of the Ips
Impetus
to enact Article 23 legislation now traces to China's
then-vice premier Qian Qichen's remark at last year's
fifth anniversary handover celebrations that it was high
time for action. However, the implementation drive bears
the hallmark of Hong Kong's ham-handed elite. For
starters, the government chose to introduce the
legislation using special procedures that severely limit
public scrutiny and opportunities for amendments,
ensuring that the proposal and the restrictions would be
in the public spotlight.
Secretary for Security
Regina Ip, trained as a manager, not a lawyer, has
tackled the thankless task of advocating the legislation
with fraudulence that would be laughable if it wasn't so
serious. "The mainland has assured us no one gets
prosecuted in China for political crimes," she asserted
to lawmakers with a straight face.
On the one
hand, Ip defended the government's streamlined process
for the enacting the legislation, famously remarking
that the proposal was intended for the scrutiny of
experts, not "taxi drivers, restaurant waiters and
McDonald's staff". On the other hand, she welcomed
support for the legislation from a children's choir
sponsored by a pro-Beijing group.
Ip has
dismissed widespread public apprehension over the
Article 23 proposals, for example choosing to question
the estimate of 100,000 marchers in a previous protest,
rather than weighing the substance behind the popular
discontent. In its summary of public commentary on the
proposals, the government cynically characterized
objections to the law by legal and civic groups as
"unclear" rather than "opposed", to misrepresent the
level of public support.
On Tuesday, HKJA and
its fellow marchers should leave no room for doubt about
the level of public dissatisfaction with this move to
restrict freedom in Hong Kong (people with similar
sentiments are being encouraged to wear black to
indicate solidarity with the protestors). In addition to
dissuading the authorities from overreaching on Article
23, large numbers may also help convince Hong Kong's
elite that politics in an open society must be a mass
participation sport.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times
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