Hong Kong: Big Brother is watching… but beyond the border. Hong Kong is a small haven that has been spared, allowed its freedom similar to the Western world and anointed as a special administrative region that is permitted to live by relatively laissez faire rules by the authoritarian behemoth next door. After all, this is one place in China that is permitted to remember the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre with tens of thousands attending a vigil every year. The very mention of Tiananmen Square is banned in mainland China. The pervasive censorship and human rights abuses in the neighbourhood can be forgotten, shut away, for the most part by expats like me who have made this international city home.
That sense of false security that Hong Kong lulls you into with its super efficiency and prosperity, has taken a body blow with the Hong Kong government’s decision to expel Victor Mallet, a senior and intrepid journalist at the Financial Times. There is no doubt that this is a step taken by a vengeful government to send out a broader message to those who dare advocate independence for Hong Kong from mainland China.
Victor Mallet. Credit: Reuters
Mallet seems to have invited the ire of the Chinese government in his role as the vice-president of the city’s Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC). The FCC gave a platform to activist Andy Chan, the leader of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party. China sees red if there is any talk of independence for Hong Kong, which was handed back to the Chinese by the British in 1997. It is governed under the ‘one country, two systems’ policy that allows greater freedom to the island than the PRC.
Not surprisingly, the FCC came under severe pressure from mainland China to cancel this talk alleging that it violated the laws that govern Hong Kong. Mallet and the FCC refused to buckle under pressure and the talk went ahead on the grounds that Hong Kong has always upheld freedom of the press. A month later, Hong Kong refused to renew Mallet’s visa without giving any reason for denying the visa. This is of course a far from uncommon route adopted in the mainland to throw out pesky foreign journalists. However, the shock comes from seeing this happen in Hong Kong for the first time. Mallet was based in India before this and has written a book on the threats to river Ganga and how the river is intertwined with the country’s present and future.
Also read: Hong Kong Criticised for Not Renewing Visa to Journalist
What this step brings into sharp relief is the gradual but steady increase in influence that mainland China has been exerting on Hong Kong in the last few years. There is a real concern that Hong Kong and its people have developed a political and cultural identity distinct from their Chinese roots. This became worryingly apparent in the pro-democracy protests that saw tens of thousands pouring out into the streets for weeks in 2014.
Hong Kong’s desire for a modicum of independence from the mainland and a degree of control over their own destiny would pose a huge impediment to the eventual return to its fold envisaged by the mainland government. They would also want to do their utmost to not let uncomfortable ideas about democracy and press freedom not get too embedded in Hong Kong’s psyche. The vexed issue of Taiwan’s independence from China is already a source of anxiety. The PRC considers Taiwan, a self-governing country since 1949, a breakaway territory.
On the other hand, the world we live in has seen a retreat of democracy and an assault on freedom of the press even in those countries that have held themselves to be beacons of liberty. It also seems hard to miss the hypocrisy of the British when they pillory China for its infringement of press freedom and human rights. After all, they colonised Hong Kong suppressing the very freedoms they now glorify till barely 20 years ago.
Mallet’s expulsion makes it clear that freedom of speech and expression, rule of law in Hong Kong is a facade. And that too is slipping.