The Communist Chinese have accomplished what many people believed was only a matter of time. Beijing has nearly destroyed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong as the city's Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, is disbanding.
Sheer brutality and the use of modern instruments of oppression accomplished what many activists in Hong Kong believed couldn't be done. Perhaps they were naive in thinking that Beijing wanted a "two systems, one China" policy. Maybe they were crazy to think that Beijing meant to keep its promise to maintain Hong Kong's autonomy for 50 years after Beijing regained control of the city in 1997.
Beijing was always playing the long game. China is an ancient country that is used to thinking in terms of centuries, not decades. It has a plan to reintegrate Hong Kong into the Chinese state, and nothing would happen that interfered with that plan. Using intimidation and draconian "security" laws, Beijing has successfully stymied the movement to maintain Hong Kong's position as a quasi-independent city and will now complete the process of making Hong Kong just another city in China after the Democratic Party disbands.
It's difficult to remember that when the British handed over Hong Kong to Beijing, there was hope that the Communists would keep their word and allow Hong Kong to maintain its civil liberties. For a while, Beijing kept its promise. But the noose gradually tightened, choking off any hope for freedom.
“We have not achieved what we set out to do,” Fred Li, a founding member of the party, said in an interview. “Without money or resources, we can’t even survive ourselves.”
The party said Sunday that it held a preliminary vote and 90 percent of the roughly 110 members in attendance voted to authorize its leaders to dissolve the party. (The party plans to call another vote in the coming months before it disbands officially.)
Its chairman, Lo Kin-hei, had publicly indicated earlier that the political environment was too challenging to survive, but declined to go into details. Veteran party members like Mr. Li said that Chinese officials or their intermediaries had urged them to disband.
The Democratic Party believed that holding Beijing accountable for its promises to maintain a degree of Hong Kong autonomy and eventually allow Hong Kong to hold direct elections for its leaders.
Chinese officials "urging" party members to disband was not an idle threat. A "founding member, Sin Chung-kai, said some Hong Kong-based members were warned in early February of consequences if the party continued to exist," reported the Associated Press.
As recently as seven years ago, the pro-democracy parties won 60% of the vote. That was before the demonstrations of 2019 and the brutal crackdown by Beijing.
China’s crackdown including the 2020 sweeping security law changed the political landscape. Some former lawmakers, including party ex-chairmen Albert Ho and Wu Chi-wai, are now in prison in prominent national security cases.
The Democratic Party has become absent in elections due to the new legal framework for polls. Some observers believe Beijing may no longer consider the party worth cultivating ties with, especially after it did not run in the 2021 legislative election after the electoral overhaul.
Other pro-democracy groups have disbanded, including the Civic Party, the second-largest pro-democracy political party, and a decades-old group that organized the annual vigil to commemorate Beijing’s Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Some activists chose self-exile or ceased their work.
China will eventually collapse due to the overwhelming pressures of its contradictions and hypocrisies. The pro-democracy Hong Kong democrats will probably be gone by then but not forgotten.
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