Last week, Hong Kong crossed swords with Beijing over whether two pro-independence lawmakers would be allowed to enter the Legislative Council and whether eight lawmakers would retain their seats.
A Hong Kong court on Tuesday ruled that the pair, Yau Wai-ching (游蕙禎) and Sixtus “Baggio” Leung (梁頌恆), would not be allowed to be sworn into office.
The dramatic incident sheds light on the true nature of Hong Kong’s relationship with Beijing.
On Monday last week, as more than 10,000 people took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest Beijing’s intervention in the dispute, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee unanimously passed an interpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law, the territory’s mini-constitution.
This assault on the autonomy of Hong Kong has driven the final nail in the coffin of its “one country, two systems” model.
The “interpretation” of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which has attracted the world’s attention, was brought about after Yau and Leung refused to pledge allegiance to China while being sworn in.
The dispute should have been dealt with internally by the Legislative Council, but instead, without waiting for a request from the Hong Kong government or the High Court, the NPC rushed ahead and announced that it has the right to interpret the Basic Law, and determined that the pair would not be allowed to retake their oaths, effectively stripping them of their status as lawmakers.
The decision is a heavy blow to Hong Kong’s fledgling democracy.
Article 104 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law states that members of the Legislative Council must swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
While taking the oath, both Yau and Leung held up a sign that read “Hong Kong is not China,” which was ruled to have rendered their oaths invalid.
Nevertheless, the NPC should not have gone over the head of the Hong Kong judiciary. According to the “one country, two systems” framework, although Hong Kong technically has legal autonomy under the provisions set out in the Basic Law, in practice, the congress can issue interpretations that carry equal legal weight to that law.
Hong Kong’s political autonomy from China is illusory, constrained like a bird in a cage, as has been demonstrated by this latest attack on the independence of its judiciary.
For Beijing, no matter how Hong Kongers cast their ballots in elections, China’s central government possesses ultimate veto rights. Even if Hong Kong moves to consolidate its internal laws, it will not be able to escape the straitjacket imposed upon it by China. Whatever demonstrations and street protests might take place, they will not change the view in Beijing, but instead elicit an even tougher response from China’s leaders.
Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model is rapidly morphing into “one country, one system.” The situation is lamentable. Not only has a dark shadow been cast over the territory’s future, the consequence of Beijing effectively declaring war on the young generation of Hong Kongers is that it has thrown into chaos the one stable element of Hong Kong politics: the “one country, two systems” model.
Worse still, the collapse of the model is a clear display of failure for all the world to see.
It was widely believed that once a nation’s economy reached a certain level of development, it would gradually transition into a democracy.
However, in China’s case, democracy still seems a distant and unattainable prospect. This means that from now on, nations whose values do not coincide with those of China will have no reasonable grounds for believing what Beijing says.
Taiwan has been through events similar to what Hong Kong is experiencing. In 1895, after the Qing Empire ceded Taiwan to Japan, Qing officials and the Taiwanese elite established the Republic of Formosa. As with Hong Kong, a movement for democratic self-determination began to form in Taiwan only after the nation lost its sovereignty.
Although the wretchedness of that situation far exceeded what Hong Kong is experiencing now, thanks to a fortunate turn of events, Taiwan was eventually able to realize its ambitions, which allowed a democratic system to take root, making democracy a fundamental part of the Taiwanese psyche and paving the way for the gradual transition to full democracy that the nation enjoys today.
This might give Hong Kongers hope that their struggle will not be snuffed out.
Taiwanese watching the situation in Hong Kong should reflect upon this nation’s recent history. During the 10 years between the meeting of former vice president and then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2005, and the meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) this year, internal forces within Taiwan have worked against independence and pushed for unification with China.
The motivation for the KMT to establish a communication structure with the Chinese Communist Party was to move Taiwan from the “two countries, two systems” model toward unification, or “one country [China],” hoping that it would be able make the transition to achieve a “two systems” model.
However, Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong has steamrollered the Basic Law, effectively shredding all of the headline-grabbing cross-strait communiques and newspaper articles that successive KMT leaders have worked so hard to manufacture. The KMT is facing an existential struggle to justify its existence as a political party in Taiwan.
The events in Hong Kong present the Democratic Progressive Party — with its control over the major branches of government — with an even greater challenge. The public has given the government a clear mandate and direction, and revitalizing Taiwan’s flourishing democracy and injecting it with the power needed to ensure its continued survival and development is the government’s primary goal.
As President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration nears the six-month mark, many Taiwanese want her government to quicken its pace in setting the nation on a stable path. Government officials should take heed of the latest omen from Hong Kong.
Translated by Edward Jones
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