jeanne boden

願榮光歸香港 - this is not science fiction

1997: hong kong will be even more beautiful tomorrow

In 1997 Beijing celebrated the return of Hong Kong to the motherland.
This slogan in the streets of Beijing in 1997 says: "Hong Kong will be even more beautiful tomorrow".

The principle of 'one country-two systems' was set up to enable that part of China would be under control of the Chinese Communist Party, and part (Hong Kong) would continue to use the rule of law, political and economic system it had as a British Crown Colony. In the Sino-British agreement about the return of Hong Kong to China, China agreed to allow Hong Kong to keep that system for another 50 years: until 2047.

In 2017 - not 2047 - Xi Jinping announced China no longer wanted to respect the Sino-British agreement it had signed, claiming it had lost historical meaning. No strong international reaction followed Xi's announcement at the time.

This year - 2019 - is a highly significant year for China. It commemorates 1839 (start of Opium War), 1919 (May Fourth Movement), 1949 (establishment of the People's Republic of China), 1989 (June Fourth Tiananmen crackdown), 1999 NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The events over the past months show that 2019 is another '9' to be added to the long list.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube are accessible and used across the globe - including Kazakhstan, India, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and more, up to the borders of China. In China they are blocked, turning the country into an information island with an intranet rather than an internet. But China does not shy away from using these same systems to spread misinformation across the globe. In recent days Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube have all removed fake accounts rooted in China spreading wrong information about Hong Kong.

The demonstrations in Hong Kong have been going on for months now. The method used this time is 'be water'. This proves that the 'one country-two systems' which China also had in mind for Taiwan does not work, simply because China does not allow two systems. Hong Kong today is not about Hong Kong. It is about a global struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between economic cooperation based on  international standards and rule of law (with separation of powers) and China's 'rule by law' under One Party, or rather 'rule of man'. Will China's attitude towards Hong Kong develop into another major human rights issue like arbitrary Uighur detention and more? Or, will it be able to recognize Hong Kong's unique identity to get out of this crisis?