The recent stabbing of government critic
Kevin Lau
is horrible enough for the people of Hong Kong. But it is also
damaging to Beijing's efforts to convince the people of Taiwan to
support official negotiations aimed at eventual reunification with
mainland China.
In 1984, Chinese
supremo
Deng
Xiaoping promised the world that the British colony would keep
its civil liberties and gradually transition to democracy after its
return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. He devised a "one country, two
systems" formula not only for Hong Kong, but also as a model for
reunification with Taiwan. "We have proposed to solve the Hong Kong and
Taiwan problems by allowing two systems to coexist in one country," Deng
said.
Last month China and Taiwan held
official government-to-government talks for the first time in more than
six decades. China still claims the right to capture Taiwan by force and
has some 1,600 missiles pointed at the democratic island, but for now
Beijing is deploying more honey than vinegar. Chinese leaders emphasize
peaceful integration as the eventual outcome of expanded cross-Strait
transport links, tourism and commerce. Beijing hopes that business and
fraternal ties will lead the Taiwanese to choose reunification under a
"one country, two systems" framework.
That's
where Hong Kong comes in. Before taking over the territory, Beijing
promised that its local government would enjoy autonomy over all
internal affairs, civil liberties would be protected and the judiciary
would stay independent. None of those promises has been fulfilled.
Since the 1997 handover, Beijing has taken
an increasingly active role in Hong Kong's domestic affairs. The central
government's liaison office in the territory has pushed the local
government into unpopular policies such as mandatory "national
education" classes in Hong Kong schools that would teach not only love
of country but admiration for the ruling Communist Party. Only mass
protests forced the local government to scrap the scheme.
In
2003, Beijing asked Hong Kong's government to draft an antisubversion
law that threatened to criminalize political dissent. That gambit died
after half a million Hong Kongers took to the streets in the largest
protests since 1989.
Hong Kong's press
freedom is also eroding. Outspoken newspapers and magazines have
increasingly lost advertising from companies with business in the
mainland, while prominent critics of China have often lost their jobs or
worse. The Feb. 27 knife attack on Mr. Lau came a month after he was
fired as editor of the
Ming Pao
daily newspaper and days after several thousand Hong Kongers
marched in a "Free Speech, Free Hong Kong" rally. An estimated 13,000
rallied again after the stabbing, and Mr. Lau has begun a recovery that
doctors say will take two years.
In a
series of decisions, the National People's Congress in Beijing has also
overruled judgments of Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal by issuing
tortuous reinterpretations of the territory's mini-constitution, the
Basic Law. Mainland officials and legal scholars have criticized Hong
Kong judges for not helping the government achieve its objectives.
Beijing's
most important promise in the Basic Law was the eventual election of
Hong Kong's chief executive by universal suffrage. It subsequently
agreed that this would happen in 2017 but is now trying to rig the
system so that only its favored politicians could qualify as candidates.
This backsliding is especially dangerous, since local pro-democracy
leaders are promising mass demonstrations this summer.
Hong
Kong's travails help explain why most Taiwanese reject any discussion
of unification with the mainland, even after several years of
cross-Strait calm. Talks between Beijing and Taipei may open the way for
further cooperation on trade and other matters. But a breakthrough on
reunification won't happen as long as Beijing remains authoritarian and
continues to break its promises to Hong Kong.
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