Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Hong Kong Protesters Demand Resignation of Chief Executive
This piece will probably not be available in the People's Republic of China because it will address the protests in Hong Kong against the city's leaders and the PRC's demand for a law allowing extradition of people in the Special Administrative Region to the mainland. The PRC is blocking most reports of this. The protests the last two week-ends drew hundreds of thousands. The city's pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam has temporarily withdrawn the offensive legislation and has apologized. The protesters have rejected the temporary withdrawal and her apology and have demanded her resignation. The ghosts of Tiananmen Square are appearing in Hong Kong.
The legal status of Hong Kong is at stake. Under the 1997 treaty by which the British Crown Colony reverted to Chinese sovereignty, there was to be a 50-year period of one-country, two-systems. Hong Kong was to be run separately and distinctly from the rest of the PRC. This allowed Margaret Thatcher to withdraw from the territory with a certain amount of dignity having safeguarded some freedoms (though not democracy) for the residents while at the same time, the PRC reassured the business people there that they could continue to make money, while the PRC got in on the action.
As a result, the PRC cannot have a person arrested in Hong Kong and bring him or her to trial on the Mainland. This is something the Beijing dictatorship would like to change. The recent proposed legislation stemmed from a case involving Taiwan, which is considered a renegade province but part of the PRC, and a couple from Hong Kong. On what was to have been a romantic getaway, a young man named Chan Tong-kai murdered his girlfriend Poon Hiu-wang, stuffed her body in a suitcase and left it in some bushes by a subway station. He returned to Hong Kong.
The New York Times explains, "Then this past February, nearly a year after Mr. Chan's arrest, the Hong Kong government cited the case to propose legislation that would allow the city to transfer criminal suspects to Taiwan and other places with which it lacks an extradition treaty -- including mainland China.
"Seizing on the sensational crime as Exhibit A in a rushed campaign to push through the measure, Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, and her superiors in the Chinese leadership seemed confident they had a winning strategy."
They reckoned without the people of Hong Kong jealously guarding their liberties. No one in the world would object to Mr. Chan spending a long time in prison for the crime of murder, but the crime occurred in Taiwan where Hong Kong authorities have no jurisdiction. What concerns the protesters is the calibre of the Chinese legal system. There is nothing to prevent the authorities from trumping up charges against a dissident, journalist or non-conformist artist for tax evasion, drug peddling or embezzlement, demanding their extradition, and then sentencing the said rebel to prison for a crime that didn't happen.
The people of Hong Kong are now in a very dangerous place. They have forced the PRC to back off legislation it wants. They have forced the chief executive to apologize, clearly with not sincerity. They have demanded her resignation, which might be a bridge too far.
The Chinese Communist Party is quite happy to abandon principles so long as it retains power. Billionaires and stock exchanges are not in keeping with Maoist thought, yet they are part of China. When the party's grip on power is threatened, things get bloody. The protesters in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago almost forced the party to give up some of its power. It took various units of the People's Liberation Army killing thousands in the capital to make the threat go away.
The people of Hong Kong, in demanding the removal of Ms. Lam, have overtly challenged Beijing. She is the representative of the Beijing government as much as she is the leader of Hong Kong. She was selected by the mainland politicians who rule the entire country. It is hard to imagine her leaving without violent resistance from the authorities who put her in office. The next few days will prove dangerous.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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