Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In December 2021, the self-styled People’s Republic of China claimed it was “the world’s largest democracy”. On Friday, Chinese President-for-Life Xi Jinping insisted that Hong Kong’s ‘true democracy’ started when it joined mainland China in 1997!
On a two-day visit to Hong Kong, where Beijing has brutally crushed the pro-democracy movement in recent years, he hailed China’s rule over Hong Kong on Friday as he led 25th-anniversary celebrations of the city’s handover from Britain. Despite a years-long political crackdown to silence dissent, he claimed democracy has flourished.
Xi’s speech was the finale of a two-day victory lap aimed at celebrating the Chinese Communist Party’s control over the once outspoken business hub after authorities stamped out huge democracy protests, the media reported.
Since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, the opposition has been quashed and most leading pro-democracy figures have fled the country, been disqualified from office, or jailed.
But Xi said Beijing had always acted “for the good of Hong Kong”.
“After reuniting with the motherland, Hong Kong’s people became the masters of their own city,” he said. “Hong Kong’s true democracy started from here.”
This was Xi’s first visit outside mainland China after the Covid-19 outbreak in January 2020. The tightly choreographed trip was also his first to Hong Kong, since the massive protests overwhelmed the island city in 2019.
The 25th anniversary included the inauguration of the city’s new government, led by John Lee, a former security chief who crushed the pro-democracy activists.
“After all the storms, everyone has painfully learned that Hong Kong can’t fall into chaos and Hong Kong can’t afford chaos,” Xi said.
“It must get rid of all disturbances and focus on development.”
In the 1990s, Britain and China had agreed to keep Hong Kong’s autonomy and key freedoms, known as One Country, Two Systems. The anniversary was a prime example of those freedoms in action.
But, in 2019, China tore up this promise and banned all rallies, gatherings, and protests in Hong Kong as it tried to assimilate the island with the mainland.
“We made a promise to the territory and its people and we intend to keep it, doing all we can to hold China to its commitments,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday. The United States and Australia also criticized the erosion of freedoms while Taiwan’s Premier said freedom and democracy had “vanished” in Hong Kong.
But Xi claimed that One Country, Two Systems was “a good system”.
For the event, parts of the island city were closed off, and media coverage was tightly restricted. Police eliminated any potential source of embarrassment during Xi’s time in the city, with national security police arresting many over the past week, and warning others off protesting. Authorities sought to portray an image of public support for the celebrations.
Newspapers ran all-red full front pages celebrating the anniversary, and pro-Beijing publications ran bumper editions full of advertisements, with the longest-running to 188 pages.
Still apprehending trouble, President Jinping, who came on Thursday for the two-day event, spent the night outside Hong Kong, in the neighboring mainland city, Shenzhen, and traveled back into the island city on Friday morning.
Interestingly, all the anniversary events were closed to the public, but some scattered groups gathered near the flag-raising ceremony to watch the flypast.
In December 2021, China criticized a democracy summit hosted by US President Joe Biden, against which Beijing ran a week-long campaign and attacked America’s “democratic malaise”. It also claimed that the People’s Republic of China is “the world’s largest democracy”.