Newly elected lawmaker Baggio Leung is restrained by security after attempting to read out his Legislative Council oath at Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Nov. 2, 2016 (Anthony Wallace—AFP/Getty Images: http://ti.me/2gHNO8V).
On Nov. 15, acting on a directive issued by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPCSC) in Beijing, Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that two legislators-elect of Hong Kong’s democratically elected Legislative Council (LegCo) were unfit to assume office after failing to take their oaths of office in satisfactory fashion. During their oaths, the two legislators, pro-independence youth leaders Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching, displayed banners reading “Hong Kong is not China” and pledged allegiance to the “Hong Kong Nation,” replacing the word “China” with an offensive derogation of the nation’s name.
Leung and Yau’s dismissals are part of a crackdown by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elites against proponents of “Hong Kong independence,” a conflict vaulted to international salience by 2014’s failed Umbrella Revolution that sparked widespread street protests. Electoral reform, which ignited the revolution, has been ground zero of Hong Kong’s struggle for autonomy. In the special administrative region’s (SAR) unique political system, CCP elites control the nominating process for elected positions and constrain voters’ options to candidates amicable to the CCP’s “one-country” heavy interpretation of the “one country, two systems” principle. Indeed, prior to the election that saw Leung and Yau earn seats in the LegCo, six candidates were disqualified by Hong Kong authorities for having pro-independence stances.
Though part of a well-documented trend of mainland disdain for Hong Kong independence activism, the dismissal of Leung and Yau is especially concerning for three reasons:
- The brazenness of the dismissals is unmatched by previous Chinese interventions in Hong Kong’s political processes.
Leftist Hong Kong legislators fudging oaths is not a novel occurrence. In the past, however, legislators-elect have never met serious consequences for such protests — deviations from the oath typically are either ignored or legislators are given a “do-over.” Moreover, in all four previous instances where the NPCSC directed “interpretations” to the Hong Kong judiciary, the relevant cases reached Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, the highest judicial authority in the special administrative region. That the NPCSC intervened before a lower-level judicial authority even reached its initial verdict indicates a growing impatience with (or, as I argue, fear of) advocacy for Hong Kong autonomy/independence.
- The NPCSC intervention was orchestrated by the commanding heights of the CCP power structure.
The NPCSC directive to remove Leung and Yau from office was commissioned by NPCSC Chairman Zhang Dejiang, who also happens to be the third-highest ranked member of the seven-member CCP Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful decision-making body in Chinese politics. Suppressing Hong Kong dissidence has advanced to the elite agendas of the Chinese political structure, indicating that future action on this issue will be swift and unpredictable.
- More than ever, advocates for Hong Kong independence have solid and sustained, if minority, support in the SAR.
Per a recent study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 17.4 percent of citizens strongly support independence when the handover agreement expires in 2047. Pro-independence citizens also are making their presence known at the polls: an election that saw the emergence of several radical pro-autonomy/independence candidates elected also yielded record turnout, 5 percent higher than that of the 2012 elections. Since the Umbrella Revolution, the previously taboo topic of independence has gained ardent, if minority, support.
According to Chinese state media, the NPCSC’s intervention to ensure the dismissal of Leung and Yau reflects Beijing’s stance that talk of Hong Kong’s independence constitutes a threat to national security and must be “nipped in the bud.” In my estimation, the Zhongnanhai’s lashing out at a handful of college students in a legislature under de-facto Party control reflects a far darker probability: CCP fears regarding the robustness of one-party rule, both in Hong Kong and on the mainland. The CCP sees Hong Kong as an incubator for liberalism, and a vector for the transmission of that contagion to the mainland. The public dismissal of Leung and Yau by prominent CCP authorities demonstrates the Party’s fear that its mandate is waning in Hong Kong, and that the success of governance reform in the SAR might encourage challenges to CCP authority in China proper.
The dismissal of Leung and Yau, intended as a warning shot across the bow of the nascent independence movement, is likely to backfire. Edward Leung, one of the six would-have-been LegCo candidates disqualified prior to the election, has since become one of the most recognizable faces within the pro-independence faction. It is likely that the now-martyred Leung and Yau will follow in his footsteps. In May, Emily Lau, chairwoman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party warned Zhang Dejiang that restrictions on political Hong Kong’s liberties were adding oil to the independence movement’s rising flame – clearly, Zhang did not heed chairwoman Lau’s warning.
Jackson Neagli is a student research associate in the Baker Institute China Studies Program and a Rice University junior majoring in Asian studies and policy studies.