To the uninitiated mind of an outsider, Hong Kong’s new national security law may seem like just another bill passed by a democratically-elected government; but, in actuality, it is emblematic of China’s long-standing battle to regain control over this free exclave.
In 1842, the British Empire successfully defeated the Qing Dynasty, the incumbent Chinese government of the era. This forced them to end two large-scale trade embargos that resulted from the British illegally smuggling opium into the country. From this loss, the Chinese had to forfeit, among other economic arteries, the financial hub of Hong Kong. This was great news for the British Empire; however, in China, what followed shortly afterward was an era known as The Century of Humiliation.
During this time, the East Asian nation suffered territorial and political blows to a staggering degree: the aforementioned loss of Hong Kong; the Japanese occupation of Liaodong; the home-grown Boxer Rebellion, which plagued the country’s domestic stability for years to come; and the Russian seizure of Outer Manchuria, a vast region of eastern China that once connected it to the Pacific.
To make matters worse, in 1942, just when stability seemed to be returning to the country, the Japanese invaded China. This would begin a grueling military campaign between occupying forces and the Chinese United Front, a temporary military alliance between the communist and nationalist factions of the country to expel the Japanese from their mainland.
After the war ended, and all external forces were subsequently withdrawn, the Chinese engaged in their civil war, which the communists won, causing the nationalists to flee to Taiwan to set up a new provisional government. On the mainland, Mao Zedong decided to continue honoring a 19th-century, 99-year British lease to Hong Kong, which was set to end in 1997.
Following the Japanese invasion and occupation of the area, Hong Kong was an economically- devastated and infrastructurally-deprived backwater. Under British rule, though, Hong Kong experienced an economic boom. Thanks to the comparatively liberal economic reforms imposed on Hong Kong by the British government, the city adopted a free-market system and enjoyed lucrative trade deals with the United Kingdom. Consequently, this rapidly developing city became a haven for Western investors wanting to capitalize on the bountiful fiscal opportunities presented by Asian markets and their demographic excess while abstaining from the closed-off regimes of mainland China, Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge, and North Korea. Because of the Western influence and capital flowing into the colony, Hong Kong became one of the few free democracies in the region, to the ire of the communists bordering them to their north.
Once the century-long lease of Hong Kong was up, the city was officially transferred to the People’s Republic of China under the pretext of the One Country, Two Systems policy wherein Hong Kong’s economic structure would be preserved while all foreign affairs and international exchanges would be handled by the mainland on behalf of the city. This same system has also been implemented in the once-Portuguese port city of Macau, a former colony turned financial hub in a similar story to Hong Kong, although the former became more infamous for its lax gambling legislature in a region where it is otherwise forbidden.
One Country, Two Systems has also been proposed by the People’s Republic of China as a method of peaceful reunification with Taiwan, though this has been rejected by the island as a blatant attempt by the mainland to politically subjugate it.
Under One Country, Two Systems, democracy within the former colony was upheld, but with the looming influence of the communists, it always felt temporary. In 2012, a proposal to change Hong Kong’s education curriculum to a more pro-China narrative was met with mass protests due to concerns that the bill was poised to erode the city’s liberal political environment. During the pandemic, demonstrations ravaged the city as China once again attempted to clamp down on the citizens’ personal freedoms, this time by making many forms of political dissent illegal through the use of police brutality and excessive prison sentences. As a final act of dissent, all pro-autonomy members of the former colony’s Legislative Council resigned later that year.
In 2021, when a new Chief Executive was elected under a set of circumstances in which only an estimated 8% of the city’s population could vote, mass protests erupted for a third time, demanding the resignation of the Chief Executive and the restoration of Hong Kong’s democracy. Controversially, following the inauguration of the new Chief Executive, a new political faction of China-aligned legislators rose to power. The fruits of their labor culminated in the speedy ratification and implementation of Section 23 of Hong Kong’s constitution, which implements harsher measures to crack down on dissent under the vague pretext of preserving national security.
The international community, particularly western powers such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all expressed concern about the law’s implications, specifically its obstruction of personal freedoms that were once granted to citizens in Hong Kong under British rule.