Kwai To

The National People’s Congress made amendments to the Hong Kong political system two days ago. In veteran public affairs commentator Johnny Lau Yui-siu’s words, the Hong Kong democratization has fallen back to 1885 at one go. I thought I would be riled at the democratic regression, but I turned out to have my heart sink, feel helpless and sorrowful. Rather like suffering from political post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) over the past two years after a series of overwhelming political events, a lot of friends of mine left words in chat groups such as “whatever”, “whatever they are pleased with”. Managing to keep his chin up and live on happily, one among them from the financial sector told a dark joke, “I thought spinning our wheel was worse enough, yet it turned out to be worse than crude oil futures that have nosedived to negative numbers.”

Admittedly, being a bunch of “miserable middle-agers” upholding the principles of being “peaceful, rational, non-violent and foul-language free”(PRNF) in support of democratic movements, we grew up in a city that had democratic vibes. We witnessed the first LegCo direct election in our youth. At that time, without any campaign free zone, polling stations were thronged with people like wet markets, and candidates were allowed to ask voters for support outside polling stations. I thought back then: “I didn’t know democracy was like that.” In those years, everyone, be they from the pro-democracy camp, the pro-establishment camp or the leftist camp that objected to the British-Hong Kong government, was entitled to run in elections. Surely, whether one would score a victory was another story. Though directly-elected seats were still the minority, at least people were enlightened that fairness and justice should be like that.

Then, Hong Kong democracy progressed one step at a time. Before the Handover in 1997, the pro-democracy camp achieved a landslide victory in the 1995 LegCo election. A crowd of pro-democracy figures marched on to the Government House to ask for more participations in government’s policy making. Despite the matter left unsettled, Hong Kong democracy had and has never been brought into full play like that.

After the Handover, notwithstanding the legCo falling back to having seats for an electoral committee, Hong Kong people in those days believed in “‘one country, two systems’, Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong and high degree of autonomy”, that the seats for LegCo Electoral Committee would be directly elected in the end and that appointed members in District Council would be revoked. So, even though it ended up with nothing in 2007, 2008 and 2012 regarding implementation of universal suffrage, the majority of Hong Kong people who upheld the principles of PRNF thought like Lee Wing-tat, a Democrat, did that despite a long and bumpy ride, “30 years was acceptable” for democracy to materialize. However, facts have proven in 2021 that instead of progressing, Hong Kong democracy regresses.

A “miserable middle-ager upholding the principles of PRNF” said the democracy Hong Kong people want is in fact: “Hong Kong people do not want the pro-democracy camp to win every election, but fair and just elections that can usher to the legislature public opinions that the government would listen to; just as simple as that.” But in the eyes of Beijing, only the pro-establishment camp is allowed to win the majority of seats in any election. Once any “red line” is crossed, everything can be pulled back to square one. “What’s the point in holding elections then? Now that they can do whatever they like, they might as well appoint all the 90 LegCo members, and send someone to take up the post of chief executive, which is sure-fire.”

Where is Hong Kong democracy heading over? To where Macao has arrived?

Pessimism prevails among the friends of mine. Being afraid of worsening the “political PTSD”, one of them asked us to wait and see if the pro-establishment camp can really administer the city well as they are going to be the only ones left in the legislature! While one of them was putting forward that it is time to seriously consider migration, another one posted: “We can feel disappointed, but we can’t despair. When God closes a door, he must open another window. There’s always a silver lining.” It is anybody’s guess where Hong Kong democracy is heading over. But no matter how bumpy the ride is going to be, we have to go on.

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