A Snapshot of Hong Kong's Politics
Written by Ruwan Jinadasa
The numbers in brackets have definitions below, just in case anyone needs them :)
A Snapshot of Hong Kong’s Politics
After the recent delayed election
Recently the Hong Kong government delayed the September preliminary elections by a year, claiming it to be necessary due to a rise in coronavirus infections. However the opposition has accused the government of using the pandemic as an excuse to prevent people from voting. Hundreds of Hong Kong Citizens took to the streets to show their opposition to this decision.
The decision imposed was to delay the elections for a year for the Legislative Council, also known as LegCo, in which the pro-democracy camp(1) were expected to do very well. In her press conference,
“The decision to postpone the 2020 Legislative Council election has nothing to do with politics, has nothing to do with the likely outcome of this round of election. It is purely on the basis of protecting the health and safety of the Hong Kong people and to ensure that elections are held in a fair and open manner.”
However given the events preceding the announcement, many find that hard to believe. Last year, in the middle of extensive protests, Hong Kong’s pro-democrats notched an impressive victory in local elections, winning control of 17 of the 18 district councils and nearly tripling their number of seats.
The History of The Legislative Council
When China received Hong Kong in 1997, The Legislative Council, otherwise known as LegCo, had 60 members; 30 of which were called the geographical constituency (2), and 30 of which were called the functional constituency. So what do these terms mean? Geographical constituencies are much like what you think they would be. Each area of Hong Kong represents a geographical area and if you live in that area, that’s where you vote. With functional constituencies, the electorate(3) is not restricted by geography, but rather by sector. For example, the agriculture and fish industry have a seat in the Legislative Council, elected by specifically people in that industry. Upon realising this, China decided that for the 1998 elections to cut the geographical constituency down to 20, and restricted the franchises of the functional constituency from 1.1 million eligible voters, to 104k voters. This caused the functional constituencies to be essentially chosen by the Hong Kong elite who were far more likely to be pro-Beijing.
The remaining 10 seats in LegCo from the geographical constituency were given to the election committee who are 800 mainly pro-Beijing elites who are also responsible for choosing the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. You can probably see why people have problems with this.
Since 1998, there have been small changes such as the number of geographical constituencies going back to 30, replacing the election committee seats. Reforms in 2010 added 5 more seats to the functional constituency, called ‘super seats’ where anyone who was not eligible to vote in the traditional functional constituency, could vote for super seats. This means that everyone had 2 votes, one for the geographical constituency and one for the functional constituency.
These reforms also increased the membership of the election committee from 800 to 1200. The election committee is sort of elected like the functional constituency, being that different sectors elect candidates that reflect their interests.
The main events that led up to the break out of protests in 2019
When president Xi Jinping came into power, there was a more interventionist attitude from the Chinese government towards Hong Kong. For example, in 2014, China required that any Chief Executive candidate must “love the country China, and love Hong Kong”. This effectively implied that China would be screening candidates. This was the trigger of the Umbrella protests,
The umbrella protest was the movement of pro-democracy demonstrators camped out at the central business district for almost 3 months
Between November of 2016, and July of 2017, China disqualified 6 elected pro-democracy candidates from LegCo for using the oath-taking ceremony as a platform for protests. The law used to back this action up, states that “who intentionally read out words which do not accord with the wording of the Oath prescribed by law, should be barred from taking their public office and cannot retake the oath.” Obviously this law is not very specific and is open to interpretation, and this exposes a fundamental flaw in the basic Hong Kong law. It is subject to interpretation by mainland China.
In September 2018, China claimed that mainland Chinese law would apply to a region of Hong Kong that links Hong Kong to China’s high speed rail network. This is a clear violation of Hong Kong Law, article 18 that “prevents Chinese law applying in Hong Kong”.
In October 2018, China showed plans for the Hong Kong Zhuhai bridge that was to be paid for by Hong Kong tax payers. It was seen by some as an attempt to accelerate Chinese and Hong Kong integration.
Finally, the Extradition Bill in 2019. This was the event that tipped Hong Kong into protest, with an approximate 2 million people taking part in protest. The extradition bill would have allowed so-called fugitives to be tried for their crimes all over the world. This sparked fear that the bill will undermine the independence of Hong Kong's legal system and put Hong Kong citizens and foreign nationals at risk by allowing suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial, resulting in protests.
The protesters stated that they wanted 5 things.
The protests to not be labelled as riots
Amnesty for arrested protests
Inquiry for police brutality
Complete universal suffrage
Withdraw the extradition bill
Although the extradition bill was withdrawn, China seemed unlikely to agree to any of the other demands. Thus it imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong.
Although Hong Kong law prevents Chinese laws from applying there, there is an exception to this due to when it comes to “defence”, “foreign affairs” or “exceptional circumstances” in which China declares a ‘state of war’ or ‘state of emergency’. This is stated in Annex(4 )3 of Basic Law (5). So although none of these conditions were satisfied, China can add conditions to Annex 3 in order to bypass LegCo, which is what they did.
The National Security Law is very lengthy. But some interesting points that it states are: “damaging of government buildings counts as subversion(6)” with a maximum sentence of life in prison, and that the “damaging public transport counts as terrorism” and suspects can be wiretapped and put under surveillance. Additionally, the law includes plans for a new Chinese security office in Hong Kong, that gives Mainland China the power to interpret the law as they wish, giving priority over local Hong Kong law. It also allows some trials to take place behind closed doors, and even allows for cases to be tried in mainland China.
The interpretation of laws is especially scary for many Hong Kong citizens, since parts of the Hong Kong law are notoriously known for being ambiguous. A known example of this is article 29, stating that anyone “conspiring with foreigners to provoke hatred of the Chinese government or Hong Kong authorities” could have committed a criminal offence.
The fact that mainland Chinese authorities can take jurisdiction over certain cases, violates part of the declaration that deals with the legal independence of Hong Kong. Moreover, the presence of the new Chinese agency, violates the Hong Kong law that states that the maintenance of public order should be the responsibility of LegCo.
This is why Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, described the security law as a clear and serious violation of the joint declaration(7). In response, Johnson offered 2.9 million Hong Kong citizens with British national overseas status, and any of their dependents a bespoke 5 year visa into the UK. A populous poll commissioned by the China Research Group, found that 61% of the UK public were in favour of it, and only 11% against it. Also the same poll found that in general, the British public want the UK to take a harder line on China. In response to all of this, China came out with a statement to Britain, accusing it of having a colonial state of mind, threatening consequences in the UK went ahead with its citizenship plan.
There is a lot of outside debate, on whether the National Security Law is an act of totalitarian tyranny, or whether we should just mind our own business. Or whether the UK should have offered almost 3 million Hong Kong Citizens visas, or whether that number would have been better spent over a larger number of countries across the globe.
Please feel free to leave a comment below, and do tell me I’ve included anything factually incorrect as I’m obviously not an expert on China and Hong Kong, but rather looking into it, based on research from others.
Pro-democrats: refers to the political alignment in Hong Kong that supports increased democracy
Constituency: a group of voters in a specified area who elect a representative to a legislative body.
Electorate: All the people in an area, who are entitled to a vote in an election
Annex 3: A subordinate part of Hong Kong’s Basic Law
Basic Law: When Hong Kong was handed back to China, a "one country, two systems'' principle was placed in a document called the Basic Law which is basically Hong Kong's mini constitution. Basic Law protects rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech - neither of which exist in mainland China - and also sets out the structure of governance for the territory and it’s own judicial system.
Subversion: the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
Joint declaration: Also known as Sino-British Joint Declaration, it laid out how Britain would end its century-and-a-half long rule over Hong Kong. It also guarantees Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms under the “two systems” formula.