The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine appears to be reveling in the semantic possibilities that the COVID-19 pandemic presents. On Wednesday last week, China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office issued a statement on its Web site that painted Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters as “black-clad hoodlums” and called the movement a “political virus” that must be eradicated.
“As long as the protesters are not eliminated, Hong Kong will never be calm. China’s central government will not sit on the sidelines and allow this destructive, reckless and demented force to stay in place,” it said.
The provocative announcement came after Hong Kong police on April 18 arrested 15 high-profile pro-democracy figures for allegedly “organizing and participating in unlawful assemblies.” The arrests appear to be a terror tactic, designed to cow Hong Kongers into silence and submission.
The situation deteriorated further on Sunday when police arrested 230 people, including a 12-year-old boy, at the first large-scale protest since temporary restrictions on public gatherings to control the spread of COVID-19 were lifted two days earlier. Journalists at the scene reported that police used pepper spray and batons against protesters, bystanders and journalists.
The following day, state-run media Ta Kung Pao published an interview with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) in which she pledged to protect Hong Kong students from being “poisoned” by “false and biased” information. Lam singled out the liberal studies component of the secondary school curriculum for allegedly inciting students to take part in last year’s large-scale pro-democracy protests, and pledged to overhaul the curriculum.
The writing is on the wall: Beijing appears intent on destroying Hong Kong’s independent education system and replacing it with a version of mainland China’s anodyne, brainwashing curriculum to inoculate the next generation of Hong Kongers against “unhealthy” political ideas.
It is increasingly clear from the events of the past four weeks that Beijing has adopted a new aggressive approach to deal with the “Hong Kong problem,” designed to comprehensively destroy every aspect of the territory’s freedoms: education, free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of thought.
The sickening truth is that as Hong Kong comes out of one public health lockdown, its government is imposing a new one — a political lockdown designed to suppress the pro-democracy movement and prevent a repeat of last summer’s mass protests.
Less than halfway into the 50-year “one country, two systems” framework that was supposed to guarantee Hong Kong’s autonomy up to 2047, it is clear that, short of a political revolution in the mainland, the territory would find it difficult to hold back the authoritarian tide. This presents an awful dilemma for Hong Kongers: stay and continue the fight against seemingly overwhelming odds, or jump from the burning ship before it is too late.
Causeway Bay Books manager Lam Wing-kei (林榮基), who last month reopened his bookstore in Taipei, has called Taiwan the “last fortress” for Hong Kongers, and called on them to escape from the territory and join the resistance “from the outside.” However, Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) has said that Hong Kong protesters are engaged in an “infinity war” with China, and has vowed never to leave his homeland.
It is likely that there would be an exodus of young Hong Kongers from the territory over the coming months and years. Taiwan’s government must do everything in its power to provide political support for pro-democracy activists who remain there, while also extending help to those who wish to start a new life in Taiwan.
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