Part 1: The Case of China and the Hong Kong Protests for Democracy
Moderator: Yang Jianli, Chinese dissident, former political prisoner, survivor of
Tiananmen Square massacre, president of Initiatives for China
Speakers: Alex Chow, Secretary General of Hong Kong Federation of Students; Lester Shum,
Deputy Secretary General of Hong Kong Federation of Students
Moderator：Good afternoon, thank you for coming to this very important and interesting panel on Hong Kong. Let me begin by repeating what I have said in many occasions, there are three most important jobs in the world. One is making peace in the Middle East, two is democratising China, three, losing weight. Unfortunately, it remains true that there are many years to come. When we come to China, we know China is such a huge country – it is an elephant in your living room, you cannot ignore it. Sadly to say, this country is a great country that we love, with great potential, but has fundamental problems. It gives the world a lot of troubles. Tibetan issue is a Chinese problem, North Korea situation has a lot to do with China. Let alone Hong Kong, of course. Many people talk about pre-requisites of democratisation in a country: beside economy, culture, education, income, all these are factors. By all costs, Hong Kong satisfied the conditions – so why not Hong Kong?
We all watched, as Hong Kong students staged a 79-day protest last year, asking for the very right to choose their own leader, which is promised by Chinese government as well. So we see these two young leaders in street, in the conference room, across the table with the government representatives in the only dialogue with the government during the 79-day protest. We are very very lucky to have these two young leaders to be with us today, and we see hope in this generation.
Alex Chow is Secretary General of Hong Kong Federation of Students, and Lester Shum is Deputy Secretary General. They both played a key role in the protest. Without much ado, I now give the floor to these two people to talk about what happened and what is going to happen.
Alex Chow：Good afternoon, I am Alex, he is Lester, we are both undergraduate students in Hong Kong. Today you have listened to different stories, different sharing from different countries, and most of you must have been inspired by some of the stories. Those stories are carried on with hope, sometimes tragedy. I guess Hong Kong story, Hong Kong case would share the same.
So I shall share the PowerPoint with Lester altogether in illustrating the Hong Kong situation and problem. I guess when people concern about Hong Kong, in some sense they also concern about China because people think that right now, China is the second largest economy in the world, so her future will definitely affect the world. Hong Kong as a place within Mainland China and under the ruling of China, she will absolutely affect China.
When you look at these words in Chinese, 命運自主, it means to “Seize Our Future”. This slogan was proposed by students last year when we initiated a Student Strike in September. We are going to illustrate why it is important in the PowerPoint. I don’t know whether you have seen these scenes last year, they were some major roads in Hong Kong, last year they were blocked by thousands of citizens in Hong Kong. The reason for this was the government used tear gas to eliminate people in the streets.
Why did it happen? We had to trace back to 30 years ago, there was a boy called Benny Tai. Look at this handsome young man, Benny Tai. 30 years later, also Benny Tai. 30 years ago, in 80s, Benny Tai was a law student studying at the University of Hong Kong. 30 years later he became a Law Professor in the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong. Benny Tai made a proposal on Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign. Here comes a question: How did a city propel a young handsome gentleman into becoming a professor that would ask people to go to the street and demonstrate? How would this happen? This is what we have faced in the past three decades in Hong Kong.
After the Second World War, the British government took over Hong Kong and in 70s the colonial government started to think about different reform. They initiated the reform because they knew that when it came to 80s and 90s the Chinese government would ask to take back Hong Kong, so in order to increase the bargaining power, the British government started different reform in 70s. When it came to 80s, the British government and the Chinese government started to negotiate what the future of Hong Kong would be, by 1984 they signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, by that time there was no role for Hong Kong people, it was only a deal made by the British government and the Chinese government.
What was promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration was that the chief executive would be appointed by the Central People’s Government on the basis of the results of election or consultation to be held locally. When they signed this Joint Declaration in 80s, the Chinese government made an international promise that Hong Kong people would gain universal suffrage after 1997; that was the promise made by both the Chinese government and the British government in 80s. But, as we all know, the promise didn’t really come true.
Time flew and in 1989, by the time some Hong Kong people looked forward to the future of Hong Kong, some of them had hope after 1997 because in the mid and late 80s, China had some economic and political reform, but in 1989 there was Tiananmen Massacre or the 1989 Student Movement, this movement started the progress of democratic reform in China. The picture here was about that Hong Kong students and citizens went into the streets to protest and to support (protesters in) China. Every year there is vigil held in Victoria Park in Hong Kong, thousands of people gather. These kinds of effort didn’t help Hong Kong people to get democracy.
After 1989 most of the Hong Kong people were indifferent to the situation because there was full of uncertainty and tension, they did not know whether the Chinese government will collapse after 1989, and they were unsure what would happen after 1997. In 90s there were lots of commentaries saying that Hong Kong might die after 1997, there would be new guide in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong would be different, it would no longer be the economic city as influential as before. When 1997 came, most of the Hong Kong people were unwilling to accept the truth. Some of my friends in an older age even cried when 1997 came.
Lester Shum：Here came the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese government. Many people wondered whether the Chinese government will keep the promise signed in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law that Hong Kong people are protected by the One Country Two Systems with separate legal system, Hong Kong enjoys the rights to rule of law, and that Hong Kong people can exercise the rights to high degree of autonomy of local issues in Hong Kong. Many people in Hong Kong wondered whether the Chinese government would keep this promise in 1997. When we look back the history, we know that the Chinese government has no intention to keep her promise on the One Country Two Systems and the promise that Hong Kong people can exercise their rights to high degree of autonomy. We believe the main reason is that this is an ideological war between the Chinese government and the western countries.
During the colonial times Hong Kong people were governed and ruled by the British government, they cultivated culture and mindset of western ideologies in Hong Kong, such as freedom, justice, equality, liberal democracy and rule of law. This contradicts what the Chinese government believes, and the Chinese government treats these ideologies, freedom, justice, democracy, rule of law, as a threat to the regime and ruling of China. They have a cold-war mindset on Hong Kong issues, they do not believe that Hong Kong people truly believe in what they call the western ideologies, freedom, justice, equality, liberal democracy, and rule of law. The issue in Hong Kong reflects that there is a war between China and the western countries including USA, UK and other western countries.
The situation of Hong Kong is always unique, unlike Macau which was colonialised by Portugal. Macau is trusted by the Chinese government because Macau lacks dissidents or rebellion movement, however Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city which is occupied by the so-called hostile values viewed by Chinese government: liberal democracy, rule of law, justice, equality, and freedom; she is never trusted by the Chinese government, so the Chinese government proposed a series of intervention and methods to control and mould the environment and what Hong Kong people think.
The most direct way to control and mould Hong Kong must be the political system. We cannot choose our own leader, our own chief executive. The chief executive is chosen by the so-called nominating committee, an election committee formed by a group of 1,200 people, which are totally controlled by pro-Beijing parties and local land tycoons an estate tycoons, who have very close relationship with the Chinese government and they are totally controlled by the Chinese government on political issues.
Hong Kong is a special and strange place that half of our Legislative councilors are elected directly by people but the other half are elected through functional constituency, they were also elected or chosen by a small group of people. As a result, the legislative council and the chief executive are totally controlled by the government, this cause a series of problem including housing problem causing many homeless people in Hong Kong, or the land monopoly issue, which the land price is monopolised or controlled by the tycoons because of the strange election and political system.
They also launch series of intervention, in 2003 the Chinese government wanted to pass the Article 23 of Basic Law which was about protecting national security. We believe that this Article 23 of Basic Law infringed of our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly, our freedom to oppose to our government. We would be in prison like Dr Yang or like Liu Xiaobo or Ai Weiwei in China because we say things against the government, so 500,000 Hong Kong people came to the streets to make a demonstration. This was a turning point of Hong Kong, these 500,000 people coming to the street to make a demonstration was a paradigm shift, this was also a de-colonisation in Hong Kong.
In the colonial time Hong Kong people only cared about wealth, money, they were materialistic, they did not care about their future, they did not stand up to fight for their own place, for their home, for Hong Kong. But in 2003, they came out to demonstrate against the Article 23 of Basic Law, and it succeeded; the government withdrew the proposal of the Article 23 of Basic Law, which was the first victory by social movement initiated and joined by 500,000 Hong Kong citizens for their own future. This was a very important paradigm shift in Hong Kong which influenced the on-going development in Hong Kong and we believe that to some extent it caused the Umbrella Movement.
Alex Chow：As Lester mentioned, there are lots of social problems in Hong Kong, housing problem, poverty gap. The government also has different policies so as to brainwash students, such as the national education incident. Every time when there is problem, there is social movement. Throughout three decades people realised that we cannot only abide to the practice or struggle that we have been using in the past 30 years because in the current situation, the practice that we have been using in the past three decades can no longer sway the government.
Two years ago Benny Tai proposed a new idea of struggle, which was civil disobedience, he asked people to sacrifice more so as to awaken more people and that was the origin of how “occupy” came to Hong Kong. Students also played a part in it so as to counter the colonial legacy or the political system inherited from 1997.
In last August, the Chinese government smashed the hope for political reform in Hong Kong because in last August they had a meeting and made a decision that there will be no authentic democratic reform in Hong Kong. The chief executive election, the right to nominate would be restricted to 1,200 people who are the members of nomination committee. Students thought that they had to stand up and that was how the Student Strike came in September. You could see that the Student Strike started in CUHK, one of the universities in Hong Kong, then students moved to Tamar Park, a park near the headquarter of the government.
After the five-day Student Strike demonstration, the government still did not have any response, so on the last day of Student Strike, students made a strike to Civic Square. Civic Square was a public place in front of the headquarter of the government. The act of having a strike to the Civic Square was to accelerate the speed of Occupy Central. It was also the Strike in turn triggered the government to throw tear gas in the street, because when students were trapped in Civic Square for more than half day, and some students got arrested and were locked in police stations for more than 40 hours, by that time Hong Kong citizens surrounded the headquarter of the government. By then, the government and CY Leung, the chief executive of the SAR government, were so scared and had so much hatred onto protesters and they started to throw tear gas but this only triggered more people to come to the streets.
Many major roads in Hong Kong were blocked by Hong Kong citizens because they thought that they could no longer bear the government acting in this way; but unfortunately, although the occupation lasted for 79 days, the government made limited promises on the political reform.
You could see the pictures how the police treated the protesters and how people formed their own communities in the occupation areas. There were study areas, there were lots of artworks in the occupation areas, there were also lots of tents; some people also play tennis in streets.
After 30 years of struggle and Umbrella Movement, there is a paradigm shift on struggle. People start to think that if they want a better future they have to make more sacrifice, not only the older generation but also the youngsters, they are willing
to get into the prison so as to propel the progress of democratic reform. Although there were clearance in the occupation areas, people start to think that there is more hope in the future. Right after the Movement, people are more active in politics, they form their own groups, they have self-organised groups, they try to join NGOs, some people may also go to run for the upcoming election. That is how the positive energy come and this may spark change.
There are three concerns for Hong Kong people now: to stop the proposal by the government to be passed in the Legislative Council; the second part is that they have to consolidate the civil society in Hong Kong because most of the Hong Kong people think that this would be long-term battle in Hong Kong; the third part is they would have to take a more regional perspective, because Hong Kong’s problem is not only Hong Kong’s problem; it is also a problem for Taiwan, Macau, China, and the world, because the fate of these places and regions intertwine and are interrelated, so only through cooperation with different places and with the civil societies in different regions could the progress really be made.
Moderator：Thank you very much for sharing Hong Kong’s story with us. You have done a wonderful job. I have to ask two questions quickly. How old were you in 1997 when China took over Hong Kong?
Alex Chow：Seven years old.
Lester Shum：Four years old.
Moderator：Last but not least, what do you want international community to do to support you?
Lester Shum：Many people tell us that we don’t have hope to win this battle against the Chinese government and China Communist Party because they are too powerful and influential that no one can stop them and no one can put pressure on them. But Alex mentioned that there is hope in Hong Kong, there is still hope for us that we can still change, and we can prepare for the change in Hong Kong. We believe that the Chinese government is on a very dangerous road – the property bubbles, the economic bubbles will bomb and collapse one day. No one knows what would happen that time. What the international community can do is to keep pressure and attention on the problems of China, on problems of human rights in China, problems of Tibet, problems of Macau, problems of Hong Kong, and also Taiwan. These places are influenced tightly by the Chinese government. The fate of these places is hooked tightly on the Chinese (government). Only through continuous social movement and attention towards democratic movement in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Tibet, and China can we prepare and hope for a change on democratic movement to both Hong Kong, Tibet, and China.
Alex Chow：To everyone: Don’t lose hope. Eyes on the prize and we have to fight hand in hand, and then a better world to come. Care for one other because our fate and future is tightly connected. If one place collapses, it will trigger other places to suffer more.
Lester Shum：
When I arrived at here, I truly believed that we have no chance, no space, or no right to withdraw our hope. Look at the speakers here, a girl who escaped from North Korea, a girl who escaped from terrorist organisation in Nigeria. What we are facing and handling in Hong Kong is a piece of little cake, we haven’t been sent to prison, we haven’t been sent on a death roll, we haven’t become a political prisoner like Dr Yang, we don’t have any chance or any space to retreat and lose hope. We must stay focused and stay hopeful for the democratic movement and democratic progress in Hong Kong.
Moderator：Thank you. I am personally very encouraged by their message. Their message is very important. I see hope, I see hope. So please, if you can create any international forum for them to speak, do it. The world needs to know the story of Hong Kong. Thank you very much. Thank you.
