A proposed security law has Hong Kongers worried about their future
Lesson summary
Coming up today: The city of Hong Kong is bracing for a new security law that will, in all likelihood, soon be imposed by Beijing. This could be a big change for the semi-autonomous city of 7.5 million people. In the second half of today’s lesson, we’ll talk about what it means to have the deck stacked against you—or in your favor. The video lesson at PlainEnglish.com/270 is about how to make comparisons with the word “alongside”. Of course we have our Learn the Lingo and exercises on there as well; all that at PlainEnglish.com/270.
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Uncertain future for Hong Kong
China’s central government has proposed a new law for Hong Kong that could upset the city’s position as a financial hub connecting China to the West.
Hong Kong was a British colony from 1842 until 1997: over a hundred years. On July 1, 1997, the United Kingdom gave sovereignty over Hong Kong to China, under an agreement that China would preserve Hong Kong’s unique freedoms for fifty years. The nickname for the arrangement was “One Country, Two Systems.” Though Hong Kong would officially be part of China, China agreed that Hong Kong citizens would enjoy more political and economic freedoms than do mainland citizens. Hong Kong is now twenty-three years into that fifty-year agreement.
The last twenty-three years have been good to Hong Kong. In that time, it has become one of the world’s great financial centers, alongside New York, London, Singapore and Tokyo. It has benefitted from China’s rise in a way no other city could: as the link between China’s economy and the world’s capitalist economies.
China and the world’s more freewheeling countries often struggle to understand each other. China’s financial system has strict controls on capital, a heavy role of the state in decision-making, censorship, and a murky rule of law. Western financial systems rely on evenly-enforced contracts, independent courts, transparency, a generally free flow of capital, and more personal freedoms. Add to that differences of language, culture and history, and you can see why China, on the one hand, and the West, on the other, operate in two different worlds.
Hong Kong is, in many ways, the crossroads of those two worlds. It shares a language and long history with China, while maintaining the legal and economic characteristics that the West favors. Both sides use Hong Kong to their advantage. Chinese companies raise capital by selling shares on the stock market in Hong Kong, where Western investors are comfortable investing. A payment between a Chinese firm and a Western firm in US dollars, for example, often happens in Hong Kong. Individuals and companies in China often keep money in Hong Kong, knowing it’s easier to spend and invest it abroad if it’s there, rather than on the mainland. Many of the Western world’s governments extend Hong Kong privileges that they don’t extend to China. Many Hong Kong residents can get a British passport, and Hong Kong can trade more freely with the United States than mainland China can.
“One country, two systems” has been good to both sides, but it has always been a delicate balance. There are signs that this balance may be about to change.
China announced that it would be imposing a new security law on Hong Kong—a law that would criminalize any action that promotes the following things: secession (breaking away from China); subversion (undermining the power of the central government in China); terrorism; or foreign interference in Hong Kong’s affairs.
The people of Hong Kong are worried that China will use this as an excuse to criminalize speech or actions that are critical of China’s central government. They are worried that a wide variety of things can be considered subversion or foreign interference, as they are in mainland China. They are worried that trials of individuals charged under this new law would be conducted behind closed doors, in proceedings that are stacked in favor of the government and against the citizen.
This will affect daily life for citizens of Hong Kong. It also may affect Hong Kong’s position as a global financial center connecting China to the West. The more China’s central government exerts control over Hong Kong, the less comfortable Western businesspeople and investors will be doing business in the city.
Western governments are making noises in opposition to the move. Britain offered to give Hong Kongers more rights to move to the UK, work there, and settle there—though the offer may not be as strong as it seemed at first. The US Secretary of State threatened to revoke some of Hong Kong’s special trading privileges. Beijing doesn’t seem bothered.
Some people worry that businesses, banks, and finance firms will abandon Hong Kong, out of fear that the new security law will upset the delicate balance. That may yet happen, but it is unlikely. Many of Hong Kong’s biggest businesses and banks, including HSBC, have signaled their support for the law. The more likely scenario is that China will draw Hong Kong closer and closer to its own model as quickly as it can, without causing a major panic. In the second half of the fifty-year agreement with Britain, Hong Kong is likely to be much more Chinese than independent.
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