Just days after implementing its controversial new National Security Law for Hong Kong, China has launched an undeclared political witch hunt in the territory under the shadow of the new legislation. It is getting more conspicuous with each passing day that the law has one main target — the democratic voices of Hong Kong.
Beijing’s insecurity spurred the passage and implementation of the law rather than any credible threats to China’s national security.
For the regime, which has been developing from authoritarianism to high-tech totalitarianism under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), there is no greater threat than the ideas of sovereignty of the people, including active and passive voting rights, and freedom of speech, including criticism of the leadership without the fear of persecution.
The legislation is part of a political strategy to suppress and silence those whose ideas and actions question the party’s monopolistic power over every section of the state and society.
The regime’s fear of rising demand for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong and its potential influence on mainland China is the main factor behind the ongoing political witch hunt in the territory.
There are two sources of political nightmares for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong’s democracy movement.
First, at the ideological level, democratic values such as universal suffrage, rule of law, and the freedoms of speech and press are seen as mortal threats to the totalitarian dictatorship in China.
Second, at the organizational level, the idea and ability of people from different walks of life — even including civil servants — to come together and take the streets for the common cause of democracy is equally threatening for a regime that has for long tried to infiltrate every section of society to wipe out this very idea and ability.
While the CCP leadership asks people to rally behind the party, it also sows mistrust and suspicion among them and turns them against each other, through a deeply entrenched system of paid informers, spies and watchful neighbors.
It is embedded in its DNA that the unity of the people and the party is seen as a great power, but the unity of the people — without the party — is seen as a great threat to its domination.
Ever since coming to power, the CCP has been used to struggles with the people, which at times, have turned intensively vulgar and violent.
During the Cultural Revolution, it has pitted not just people against each other, but also children against their parents and students against their teachers.
Fear and hatred toward public unity and solidarity fuels the CCP’s madness about the democracy movement in Hong Kong and beyond.
However, since it is not politically convenient for the regime to commit a Tiananmen Square-style massacre in the territory, the new legislation acts as a smokescreen to crackdown on the democrats and their supporters in the name of national security.
The swift and sweeping nature of the crackdown in Hong Kong is similar to what is practiced in mainland China.
Beijing aims to nip any bud of self-organized activities, as it deems these a threat to social stability — the regime’s euphemism for political order.
The developments in Hong Kong since last month indicate that there will likely be neither a respite from the repression nor any room for dissent. The regime is willing to go all the way to undermine Hong Kong’s democracy and the public unity behind it.
The political “mainlandization” of Hong Kong is Beijing’s strategic imperative.
A new security agency in Hong Kong, to impose the new law, arrested democracy activists, while pro-democracy candidates are disqualified to run in elections, political slogans and songs criminalized, books on democracy removed, exiled activists put on wanted lists, an election was postponed, and a media house raided.
The authorities are also using COVID-19 as an excuse for their actions. Delaying the Legislative Council election is to further undermine the territory’s democracy, while it is officially a measure to curb the spread of the disease.
Hong Kong’s “mainlandization” also entails the establishment of a reign of terror, carried out by an intrusive security apparatus with extraterritorial and extrajudicial powers, as stipulated in the new legislation.
The territory’s limited rule of law, which had safeguarded justice and people’s dignity, is being replaced by the rule of a regime-security law.
The objective of this rule is to intimidate people and force them to monitor their thoughts and behaviors, as they have to constantly fear legal consequences including life imprisonment.
This, in the long term, is intended to prevent independent thinking and silence people’s inner voices.
However, the idea of democracy is deeply rooted in the psyche of Hong Kongers — particularly in young people.
The CCP and its agents might undermine democratic institutions like the Legislative Council and the judiciary, gag the free press and jail activists, but the idea will live on — even behind the prison walls.
Palden Sonam is a researcher in the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies’ China Research Programme in New Delhi, India.
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