OpinionHong Kong’s extradition protests are yet another crisis of the government’s own making

The first of these, the 2003 Article 23 protests, was a case where the Hong Kong government was trying to please Beijing by offering up a totally unnecessary bill on national security. Half a million Hong Kong protesters thought otherwise. More than a decade has since passed and no threats have come to light that existing laws have not adequately addressed.

In 2012, it was the fumbled attempt to please Beijing by offering to brainwash Hong Kong students with national education. Even our young secondary students recognised that, in an open society, any effort to deliver up an uncritical view of history would be doomed to meet with disgust and failure.

In 2014-15, the Hong Kong government took the lead to put forward transparently fake democracy as the city debated electoral reform. Such a design could only come from Beijing, but the government task force on constitutional development that oversaw two public consultations, headed by then chief secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, blocked all suggested modifications, offering only to deliver a democracy where the vetting of candidates would allow no democratic choice. Long before the government unveiled its proposed legislation, the public had signalled its disgust in a civil referendum and massive Occupy protests.

Today, we again have a legislative proposal, on Hong Kong’s extradition agreements with other jurisdictions, including the mainland, that the government is hard pressed to justify. For the one criminal case they point to, Taiwan has already signalled its reluctance to accept rendition of the prisoner under such legislation that poses a substantial risk to Taiwanese in Hong Kong.