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Young anti-extradition bill protesters clad in black flood Causeway Bay and march to the government headquarters in Tamar, Admiralty, calling on Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign, on June 16. Photo: Winson Wong
Opinion
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Hong Kong extradition protests reveal deep-rooted problems that need addressing. How will Carrie Lam and Beijing respond?

  • The government has failed to account for people’s mistrust of China, lack of faith in the ability of Hong Kong’s leadership to make independent decisions and the demographic complexity of the community
David Dodwell
David Dodwell
Why you can trust SCMP
On the spectrum between cock-up and conspiracy, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s blundering into what may be Hong Kong’s biggest political crisis since China resumed sovereignty over the territory in 1997 smells strongly of a bungle. That does not make it any less serious. 

The credibility of the administration is in shreds. Divisions in the Hong Kong community have been widened. Crude stereotypes of Hong Kong gradually being swallowed by China’s dark totalitarian forces have run rampant across much of the international media.

The “one country, two systems” arrangement which underpins international business confidence in Hong Kong and trust in the independence of its legal system has been jeopardised. So, too, has progress on Hong Kong’s engagement in the Greater Bay Area initiative and its role as a safe haven during the US-China trade war.
I was among the thousands who watched perplexed as the Hong Kong government fuelled some of the biggest, but astonishingly peaceful, demonstrations the world has ever witnessed, and then crumbled, with abject but unconvincing apologies, implausible promises to listen more carefully to public opinion and undeliverable calls for a healing process to begin.
I have five points to make. First, the administration is on the brink of making its first post-crisis mistake by focusing on the extradition bill. That legislation is dead on arrival and should formally be recognised as such. The painful reality is that Hong Kong’s youth, and their families, did not trudge through the searing heat on Sunday just because of that bill.
Their protest had its roots in Article 23 demonstrations in 2003, in the Occupy movement in 2014, in the abduction of Hong Kong booksellers in October 2015 and of Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua from the Four Seasons Hotel in January 2017. It was rooted in the denial of a visa to Financial Times Asia editor Victor Mallett and the detention on the mainland of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor last year.
The demonstrations are also tied to an anxiety that has yet to fully materialise: the roll-out of facial-recognition technology across China in the near future that will be used to build social profiles that will reward and punish. Note how many protesters veiled their identities.

In short, the present inflamed sentiments have deep roots which cannot be calmed simply by killing the extradition bill. People need to have confidence that their freedoms are secure. If Hong Kong’s links to the mainland are to intensify, with people being encouraged to pursue futures across the Greater Bay Area, they must be sure that these freedoms will be secure across the border, too.

Anti-extradition bill protesters block the roads around the government headquarters in Tamar, Admiralty, on the morning of June 17. Many protesters wore masks and tried to conceal their identities Photo: Sam Tsang

Second, Hongkongers must be reassured that our leaders are not merely puppets, despite large numbers of sceptics – often ill-informed – who refuse to believe that Beijing does not daily pull their strings. Beijing must recognise that, without a more robust democracy, building such confidence will be an uphill struggle and it must act accordingly.

Third, Lam and her team have not fulfilled campaign pledges to listen to the people. In part, that is because of a reluctance to acknowledge the difficult demographics of Hong Kong.

Arrogance brought Carrie Lam to a political precipice

A significant part of the Hong Kong population harbours profound suspicions about the mainland and the intent of the Communist Party leadership, despite the economic success of the country over the past 30 years and the number of mainland communities that have been lifted out of poverty. Some of those holding these views will never change them. Others see actions on the mainland that justify continued anxiety.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks at a press conference at the government’s headquarters in Tamar, Admiralty, as she announces the suspension of the extradition bill on June 18. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Hong Kong’s Christian community harbours particularly entrenched antagonisms. So, too, do the hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers who hold Canadian passports.

Patriots may criticise these families for having fled Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s, when uncertainty about the city’s future was keenest, but they have returned and remade Hong Kong their home. Their children have spent formative years in liberal environments in Canadian schools where robust political debate is encouraged.

Another source of demographic complexity are the more than 1.1 million people from the mainland – many of them women married to older Hong Kong men – who have arrived in Hong Kong since 1995, comprising around 15 per cent of our population. This segment has distinct views about Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland.

Mainlanders living in Hong Kong face financial hurdles and endless hostility

Many of these immigrants have few skills and live in Hong Kong’s poorest communities. Given that inequality and limited access to home ownership is a deep source of public anxiety, this group faces challenges that the wealthy in our community can barely imagine.

By failing to acknowledge and better understand these difficult demographics, our administration has heard little, no matter how keenly it has been listening.

Single mothers from the mainland call on the government to help them get one-way permits so they can reunite with their children in Hong Kong, at a protest in Citibank Tower in Central, in October 2010. Photo: Handout
Fourth, the crude lobbying on the extradition bill, with claims that critics – including two leading legal bodies – simply did not understand, has endangered faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law and our integrity as a legal and arbitration centre for businesses across the region.

Our legal community and the legal protections the government has provided have made Hong Kong among the most trusted jurisdictions in the world, all of which has foolishly been put at risk. It is the integrity of our legal system that differentiates us from other Chinese cities and sits at the core of the “one country, two systems” model.

It works as much to the advantage of China and Chinese companies as it does to the thousands of global companies based here. Urgent action is needed to restore faith.

Business opposition to extradition bill should have rung alarm bells

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, Hong Kong has for the past 22 years stood as a symbol of China’s commitment to opening up. Shatter that symbol and international faith in China’s commitment to multilateral engagement with the global economy is destroyed, too.

How Beijing responds to the dreadful events of the past two weeks is as important as how our own administration responds. This is not the time for a heavy hand.

David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Getting to root of unrest
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