With the national security law, I’m finally getting a taste of life in a communist country

Using the law as the main weapon, scores of critics and opposition voices have been silenced, all in the name of ‘patriots’ governing Hong Kong
Officials’ dedication to enforcing national security is impressive. So why have they been unable to address the city’s deep-rooted problems?

Peter Kammerer

Published: 6:45am, 21 Sep, 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Communist regimes have long fascinated me. My first experience of a communist country was visiting the former Soviet Union as a tourist in 1985. The following year, I joined a seven-city group tour of China from Hong Kong. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam followed in short order.

My impression at the time was that they were not as developed as their Western counterparts, their governments had a fondness for slogans plastered on giant billboards or blaring from tinny speakers, and some had an affinity for embalming the bodies of their founding fathers and putting them on show for public veneration.

I’ve been to mainland China more than a dozen times since that first trip in 1986 and have been mightily impressed by the development, but never experienced first-hand what the politics actually meant for everyday people beyond internet availability and television programming.

I’m no student of the intricacies of Maoism and Stalinism and how President Xi Jinping is retooling ideology to suit 21st-century China. The way the national security law is being implemented and enforced in Hong Kong is finally giving me first-hand insight. It is not what I anticipated.

Should we have expected the Communist Party’s takeover to be any different? Using a national security law with seemingly no boundaries as the main weapon, scores of critics and opposition voices have, one by one, been silenced, mostly for secession, colluding with foreign forces, subversion or unlawful assembly.

01:44

Hong Kong police raid opposition group’s museum collecting evidence for national security law case

Ousted lawmakers and leading political figures who supported Western-style democracy have been ousted from office, are languishing in jail or on bail awaiting trial and ruled ineligible for election.

Organisations perceived as sympathetic to such causes have been called out by Chinese state media and methodically forced or pressured to disband. Some lawyers, teachers, academics, journalists and people involved in a widening list of professions are having second thoughts about their jobs and whether to stay or go.

It’s all in the name of patriots governing Hong Kong. “Patriots” have never been adequately defined in my mind; there’s been talk of loving the nation, but I’m certain that people who trace their ancestry to mainland China are as one with it as anyone else.

The more accurate reading is that a patriot is someone who accepts Communist Party rule of Hong Kong and will unquestionably do as they are told. That’s a tall order for people trained as academics or journalists among professions whose job it is to research, analyse, strive for accuracy and point out what’s good and bad.

02:50

Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong seeks greater ‘artistic expression’ in Taiwan

In an environment where national security is being used to silence critics, that obviously leads to uncertainty for some professions.

The seemingly unaccountable resources being poured into enforcing the law and the trivial nature of some offences – among them stickers with words deemed subversive, songs sung at a rally, giving chocolate and hair clips to inmates – reveal the extent to which officials will go in the name of stamping out acts considered subversive.

It leaves some of us wondering if we have ever posted troublesome things on social media, whether we can trust the stranger we are talking to in a pub, or if we should press the “send” button on that email.

04:36

Hong Kong press freedom is at centre of ‘one country, two systems’

I’m impressed by the dedication of the Hong Kong authorities to the cause of promoting and enforcing national security; they appear tireless and determined. It has me wondering how, given their obvious abilities, successive governments have failed to address the city’s deep-rooted problems.

Wages have been suppressed and housing costs have risen so high that most people will never be able to afford a home of their own. The mandatory pension scheme is so broken that retirement is a dismal prospect for many.

Even short-term problems seem unsurmountable; the Greater Bay Area is repeatedly intoned as Hong Kong’s future, but Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions make it off-bounds and no conditions have been set as to what is necessary to open border checkpoints. Does the government have its priorities right?

Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post

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