Last week, Hui Chi-fung, a democrat and former LegCo member, declared he is being in exile with his family overseas when paying a visit to Denmark. He has become the latest to join those Hongkongers escaping persecution by the regime, and the first former LegCo member forced to go into exile after finishing the term of office without being disqualified from the seat. Hui’s expatriation has marked political refugees from Hong Kong not confined to members of the so-called radical camp, but now even inclusive of a comparatively moderate mainstream pan-democratic former councilor. To the international community, it almost amounts to suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) has intensified the suppression of Hong Kong, under which even those condoned by Beijing at one time are now eradicated at one go. Under such tense conditions, trying to convince foreign governments and corporates of the “one country, two systems” and high degree of autonomy bragged by Chinese and Hong Kong officials is about as easy as nailing jelly to the wall.

Cracking down on dissidents will naturally deal a blow to the faith of overseas politicians and businessmen in the Hong Kong society. But the Hui hi-fung incident has laid bare a graver issue: the government is entitled to abuse its official power to freeze bank accounts and block cash flow without a need to proffer any reason. The authorities froze the bank accounts of Hui’s and his family members’ all at once, yet have been unable to put forward any legal ground why it staged the operation and why his family members, who are not criminal suspects of any sorts, are embroiled. The case is rather like the “collateral penalty” from ancient times resurfacing. Later on, the bank unfroze the accounts, then refroze them. Which part of this back-and-forth freezing and unfreezing looks like a professional and fair law enforcement procedure? What it has manifested is just arbitrariness in operations by the government, and that banks have no idea what course to take in the face of such capricious “law enforcement”. If the government had been authorized justifiably by a court order to freeze the assets, could the bank have unfrozen and refrozen the accounts as it wished in such a short while? Regardless of the cause and course of the incident, it has revealed to the international community one more time the extent to which the rule of law in Hong Kong has crumbled. And to overseas enterprises, what is more important is the collapse has extended to the financial system: safety of money stashed in Hong Kong is not 100% guaranteed by law.

Beyond any doubt, this is not the first time the regime has put the so-called “financial crimes” to use and targeted them at dissidents’ purse. From the Spark Alliance last year to the arrest of internet channel host Giggs last month, the people involved in crowdfunding activities for protests were all arrested by the police for their alleged “money laundering”. But the alert sounded by the Hui Chi-fung incident to the international community this time is much louder than that by the previous two. Firstly, being a former LegCo elected member, Hui is more representative and has stronger connection with the international community than the previous two. Secondly, the “collateral penalty” on Hui’s family scarcely happens in Hong Kong, which used to be a society with rule of law. The Hui Chi-fung incident is reminiscent of Cai Xia, a retired professor from the Party School of the Central Committee of the CCP, having her bank accounts in the mainland frozen and her pension revoked after going into exile abroad. And this is where the issue lies. If Cai Xia’s accounts being frozen is a model case of thorough crackdown on dissidents under the dictatorship of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the Hui Chi-fung incident is a typical example of the fact that the capitalist Hong Kong is not different. When an international financial center carrying out “one country, two systems” turns into a " sinicized financial center” carrying out the “state system”, it is simply a matter of time before overseas corporates and investors hold back. And when overseas corporates forsake Hong Kong, leaving only state-owned enterprises here, the city is just identical with Shanghai and Shenzhen. Is the status of Hong Kong as an international financial hub still possible?

Besides, the incident does not only impact on overseas corporates running their businesses in the city, but also cause a disaster in Hong Kong banking industry. In recent years, information about banks operating in coordination with the regime to conduct suppression has been leaked time and again from the industry. What’s more, in recent months, they also have had to operate pursuant to the sanctions list put forward by the US in order to ensure their businesses not implicated, which has brought about a funny story that the chief executive of the financial center is denied any bank accounts. Banks in the middle of Sino-US financial wrestles have found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. The Hui Chi-fung incident will only worsen the scenes. Have you ever heard of a city with the banks fettered to the point of being powerless to operate and frequently taken to task by two leading powers being able to preserve its status as a financial center?

(Lam Hoi, journalist)

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