White flowers at makeshift shrines and messages of support posted in a public square. A rainbow of folded paper cranes. Boxes of donated goods for those in need. Hong Kongers’ responses to the Tai Po fire disaster — in which at least 160 people have died and 31 are still unaccounted for — have, on the surface, resembled similar community expressions of solidarity last seen during the 2019 protests. However, beneath the surface, Hong Kong civil society is struggling to respond to this latest collective trauma in a territory that has deeply changed in the past five years.
The cauterization of Hong Kong’s civil society that has occurred under Beijing’s national security crackdown has meant that the types of grassroots activism that would traditionally have occurred in response to such a tragedy — as they would in any other open society — are no longer possible.
In the past, pro-democracy legislators would have grilled government officials in the legislative council: But in 2021 that changed when 47 pro-democracy politicians proposing to run in elections were charged with subversion, and later jailed. Only Beijing-approved “patriots” are now permitted to run for office, and all of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy political parties have since dissolved.
Illustration: Mountain People
Freewheeling independent media outlets, such as Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) Apple Daily newspaper or online outlet Stand News, would have doggedly pursued investigative reporting to uncover corruption or mismanagement, and seek accountability for the fires. However, those independent media outlets were forced to close, and their editors charged with sedition.
An array of civil society groups would have offered assistance. The Progressive Lawyers Group, for example, would have volunteered legal aid for victims and their families, and provided objective analysis on legal questions such as the difference between a statutory commission of inquiry and the toothless “independent committee” proposed by the Hong Kong government to investigate the disaster. However, that group, and scores of other civil society groups, have either been forced to close by the authorities, or disbanded in fear.
Hong Kong’s creative community might have responded in works of art, film and literature, but artists have also been cowed. Those with a track record of activism or political activity are prevented from exhibiting. Theater groups find their venue bookings abruptly canceled. Films are censored such that the depiction — whether documentary or fictional — of any “sensitive” topic, including Hong Kong’s own protests broadcast widely in 2019, is effectively banned. A work of art on the Tai Po fires such as Steve McQueen’s haunting Grenfell could not be exhibited in today’s Hong Kong, and even making such a film would be considered an act of sedition.
Hong Kong was once a city of lively, sometimes raucous, public debate; now those voices have fallen eerily silent. However, this does not prevent the authorities from being nervous that — as has been the pattern elsewhere in China and globally — the tragedy would become a focal point for anti-government sentiment.
Reports of corruption or regulatory failures being a factor in the fires are one potential target for community anger. The extent to which this tragedy reveals a broken system, dominated by tycoon property developers, cronyism in the construction industry and a bureaucratic, but ineffective government, remains to be seen.
However, it is a somewhat unlikely source of outrage that might become even more potent: bamboo. Initial reports that the bamboo scaffolding covering the buildings had contributed to the fire quickly drew criticism. Subsequent investigations have come to focus on the flammable netting enveloping the scaffolding as well as Styrofoam boards used to cover the windows of the buildings while renovations were under way.
However, in the meantime some in Hong Kong have raised concerns that the tragedy would be used as an excuse to phase out local bamboo scaffolding in favor of mainland-manufactured steel scaffolding. This is not merely a question of fire safety. Bamboo scaffolding is regarded as an example of Hong Kong’s unique cultural heritage, and as such is a deeply political matter. Issues of Hong Kong culture and identity have been at the core of Hong Kong political protest movements, not just in 2019, but over the preceding decades. This makes bamboo capable of becoming a lightning-rod issue.
The authorities’ immediate heavy-handed response to the tragedy betrays their concern: In the first week after the disaster, a university student distributing flyers demanding accountability for the fire was detained, as were a former pro-democracy local councilor providing volunteer support and a lawyer who had been coordinating a news conference of civil society experts. The news conference was canceled.
A YouTuber who allegedly posted asinine and offensive — but not political — comments about the fire online was also arrested, marking the first time that Hong Kong’s national security laws have apparently been used to exercise mainland-style moral (as opposed to political) policing of online content.
However, one point of difference with the mainland has been an apparent contrast in the accountability of leadership. The lines of accountability for local officials in cases of similar disasters in the mainland can be brutal and short. For example, last year 55 officials, including the local mayor and party secretary were removed from their positions or punished after a fire in a Jiangxi commercial building killed 39 people.
One bold reporter was speaking the minds of many of his fellow Hong Kongers — and possibly many in the mainland as well — when he confronted Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) in a news conference earlier this week with the question: “Can you tell us why you deserve to keep your job?”
In any other Chinese city, heads would roll for the negligence and mismanagement that has caused so many deaths.
However, from Beijing’s point of view, there is only one measure that could determine whether Lee would keep his job: would he be able to prevent any protests and snuff out any signs of dissent? By that measure, his performance so far has been faultless.
Antony Dapiran is the author of two books on Hong Kong politics and protest.
Chinese state-owned companies COSCO Shipping Corporation and China Merchants have a 30 percent stake in Kaohsiung Port’s Kao Ming Container Terminal (Terminal No. 6) and COSCO leases Berths 65 and 66. It is extremely dangerous to allow Chinese companies or state-owned companies to operate critical infrastructure. Deterrence theorists are familiar with the concepts of deterrence “by punishment” and “by denial.” Deterrence by punishment threatens an aggressor with prohibitive costs (like retaliation or sanctions) that outweigh the benefits of their action, while deterrence by denial aims to make an attack so difficult that it becomes pointless. Elbridge Colby, currently serving as the Under
Apart from the first arms sales approval for Taiwan since US President Donald Trump took office, last month also witnessed another milestone for Taiwan-US relations. Trump signed the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act into law on Tuesday. Its passing without objection in the US Senate underscores how bipartisan US support for Taiwan has evolved. The new law would further help normalize exchanges between Taiwanese and US government officials. We have already seen a flurry of visits to Washington earlier this summer, not only with Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), but also delegations led by National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu
Ho Ying-lu (何鷹鷺), a Chinese spouse who was a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee, on Wednesday last week resigned from the KMT, accusing the party of failing to clarify its “one China” policy. In a video released in October, Ho, wearing a T-shirt featuring a portrait of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), said she hoped that Taiwan would “soon return to the embrace of the motherland” and “quickly unify — that is my purpose and my responsibility.” The KMT’s Disciplinary Committee on Nov. 19 announced that Ho had been suspended from her position on the committee, although she was
Two mayors have invited Japanese pop icon Ayumi Hamasaki to perform in their cities after her Shanghai concert was abruptly canceled on Saturday last week, a decision widely interpreted as fallout from the latest political spat between Japan and China. Organizers in Shanghai pulled Hamasaki’s show at the last minute, citing force majeure, a justification that convinced few. The cancelation came shortly after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi remarked that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could prompt a military response from Tokyo — comments that angered Beijing and triggered a series of retaliatory moves. Hamasaki received an immediate show of support from
RSS