The Hong Kong Protests

Protests in Hong Kong have been in the news for almost 4 months. Initially the protests were targeted to stop the extradition law to pass. I am sure that many are confused why a seemingly common extradition law caused full-scale riots and protests. The proposed extradition law included an extradition agreement with China. Hong Kong has a completely different law system as it was a British colony until 1997. Most of the laws are British laws and the rule of law has been respected for years. In contrast, China’s law system is widely considered to be a political tool for the Communist Party. Hong Kong people fear that fugitives (fugitive from China’s point of view can be very different from ours!) sent back to China will receive unfair treatment. That’s what made nearly 1 million people take to the streets on 9 June which is roughly 1/8 of the population of Hong Kong.

The government remained unmoved and announced that it would continue its work on passing the law. This infuriated the people and inspired some to start protesting violently. As protests started to get violent, clashes between the police and protestors became more intense.

On 21 July 2019, a mob of around hundred armed men attacked civilians, who were mostly pro-democracy protesters, at Yuen Long Station. Later it was found that police had turned a blind eye to the attack and the police force was accused of collusion with the mob. This sparked more violent protests, and this is when the protest shifted its focus from anti-extradition to anti police. On several occasions, the police force showed a completely biased attitude towards the pro-government side and this included setting an armed pro-government protestor free after they assaulted the opposition.

Pro-democracy protestors are called cockroaches by their opposition. Indeed, they have showed the resilience of cockroaches. In a recent report, around 40 percent of arrested protestors in the last 4 months are aged under 18. These young passionate protestors and their pursuit of freedom and western values will pose a great threat to the government in the long term. I personally can’t see this clash ending without both the protestors and the government taking a back step. It seems impossible that the government is going to meet the 5 demands proposed by protestors which include universal suffrage for the election of the chief executive and releasing all prosecuted protestors. Meeting some of these demands will completely undermine the values of the Communist Party and potentially cause local uprising in mainland China.

However, there is one demand that is worth mentioning which is to set up an independent committee investigating the misconduct of police during the protests. I am very confident that protests would die down after this demand has been met. However if the government insists on ignoring the demands of the people, this will be the start of a series of even more violent protests and potentially trigger an emigration crisis.

With Hong Kong being sandwiched between the West and China, the freedoms that all Hong Kong citizens celebrate and thrive under are getting tightened gradually by Beijing. Fueled with ridiculous property prices and income inequality, the anti-extradition protests seem inevitable in retrospect.

The protest has inspired many to take side in either pro-democracy or pro-government. From what I see, the difference in political stance has caused tensions between friends and family. Many feared to express their opinions while some openly criticize others’ opinion on social media. Perhaps we should start respecting each other’s opinion and try to talk our way through these. I never love writing, not even in Chinese, but I could really feel the drive to write about Hong Kong, the only place that I could call home.