Ominous Omens For Hong Kong
(Honolulu Advertiser | December 1, 2002)
The former British colony once defied all odds to become an economic power. New challenges loom on the horizon
In many ways Honk Kong looks as good as ever. The soaring Bank of China building and its many gleaming neighbors in Central, the downtown business hub, still have the air of cocky optimism that built this former colony into an economic powerhouse and the freest Chinese city in the world. The streets are jammed with well-dressed office workers, the subway is crowded, and yuppies belly up to the overpriced bars and fill the streets of the trendy Lan Kwai Fong district.
Beneath the famous glitz and glamour, though, Honk Kong is anything but the city it once was. The economy is in a protracted slump, unemployment is near record highs, factories are moving to mainland China, and there is growing pressure on the government to devalue the currency's peg to the US dollar to make prices more competitive with the region.
But beneath the figures, something more ominous is under way: The territories famous civil liberties are under assault. Nothing makes that plainer than the appointed Hong Kong rulers' recent proposal of sedition and security regulations that threaten to undermine the tradition of vibrant free expression. These call for severe penalties for a range of national-security "offenses," such as discussing, or reporting on discussions of, Taiwanese independence or publishing unauthorized information.
Just five years after sovereignty was transferred from Great Britain to Beijing, the ruling elites here are showing no gumption to stand up to China or conservative local forces eager to curry favor with the mainland. Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong was supposed to be free of rule by fiat. But these regulations are expected to pass the mostly appointed legislature after a pro-forma period of public discussion that ends in December.
Already, journalists face pressure inside newsrooms to censor themselves on a range of topics, from aggressively covering some local tycoons to weighing in on sensitive issues involving China. "It is not that anyone says you can't do something," said one senior reporter. "It is that the rules are well-known. We control ourselves."
"It is a matter of business," said another reporter. "Everyone is drooling after the China market, and the wealthy owners of our newspapers are no different. They don't want to offend."
The tone was set in 2000, when China's leader, Jiang Zemin, blew up at a Hong Kong reporter at a news conference: "I'm addressing you as an elder. I' m not a reporter. But I have seen too much and it's necessary to tell you: In reporting, if there are errors you must be responsible."
The same year Wang Fengchao, a mainland official in Hong Kong, said the Hong Kong media should not be allowed to report on Taiwanese or Tibetan independence, even though Beijing has no constitutional right to interfere in Hong Kong's policies. Willy Lam, the South China Morning Post's respected China editor, was dismissed, many suspect for his long-standing reportage on inside moves among China's leaders. In 2001, Jasper Becker, the paper's seasoned Beijing correspondent, was also fired.
The new regulations that threaten to codify timidity are rooted in Article 23 of the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong. Drawn up by the National People's Congress in Beijing 10 months after the Tiananmen Square uprising. Article 23 calls for special penalties for crimes against the state. The Hong Kong authorities were left to come up with precise language and postponed doing so immediately after the 1997 handover; it would have been too much for investors and the public.
Laws already exist that could apply to real cases of sedition or treason. Article 23 is something else: political legislation designed to send a political message. Everyone here knows that trumped-up charges of hindering state security or harming national interests have been used repeatedly in China to imprison journalists whose reporting challenges political taboos.
The assurances meted out by government authorities say, in essence, trust us, we're the good guys. "The proposals ... will not have any adverse impact on freedom of expression, or freedom of the press, as they are currently enjoyed," Security Secretary Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal. More recently, the hard-line Ip said that democracy was over-rated. Her evidence: the election of Adolph Hitler as German chancellor in 1933.
Jimmy Lai, the outspoken and hard-charging publisher of Hong Kong's No 2 daily newspaper, Apple Daily, recently expanded his publishing business to Taiwan as a hedge against what he sees as the inevitable contraction of the democratic space in Hong Kong. "I think the economic climate is making people ambivalent to self-censorship," Lai said. "If five or six years ago the government wanted to pass Article 23, the whole society would make noise against it. But now... people are worried about their jobs."
There is a threat, too, for the rest of the region, which has long depended on Hong Kong's free press to understand China. Vital dissident voices still use Hong Kong as a platform to freely discuss ideas banned in China. Will those voices be silenced?
Implementing Article 23 only will serve to remind Hong Kong, if any reminder was needed, that Beijing calls the shots. The shining office towers may endure, but something less tangible but even more important could be lost: part of Hong Kong's independent spirit.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org