Louisa Lim

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Hong Kong’s Memory Is Being Erased

MundoAsia, , ,

The group of about 80 protesters wore numbered lanyards around their necks and cordoned themselves off with tape as they marched, like a crime scene in motion.

This odd spectacle last month was Hong Kong’s first authorized protest in three years — highly choreographed, surveilled and regulated, even though it was not an explicitly antigovernment demonstration, and a world away from the crowds that thronged streets in 2019 to protest China’s tightening grip on the city. One participant said the protesters, who were opposed to a land reclamation project, were “herded like sheep”.

It was just one example of how Hong Kong, a global, tech-savvy city whose protests were once livestreamed around the world, is being transformed.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘In 2019, Carrie Lam called protesters “enemies of the people”. In 2020, she extended that designation to all who opposed the security law.’ Photograph: Lam Yik/Reuters

MundoAsia,

The arrest of 53 activists in Hong Kong on national security charges represents the purge of an entire generation of politicians. Police also demanded documents from three news organisations and for the first time arrested a foreign citizen – the US human rights lawyer John Clancey – on national security charges. These moves represent an assault on civil society the aim of which appears to be the destruction of the system that nurtured the type of political engagement that brought nearly 2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – out on to the streets in 2019.

Those arrested are suspected of subversion, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hongkongers raise blank papers after slogans were banned. Photograph: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

MundoAsia,

Writing about the protest movement in Hong Kong, I began to notice the absences everywhere I went. A moving patchwork of white, black and grey squares decorated walls and pavements, as more and more protest slogans were erased from the public gaze. Now, with Beijing’s enactment of national security legislation in Hong Kong, that void has suddenly gaped wider, swallowing words, ideas, open discussion, and even people from public view.

The legislation bans secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. The first sight of it for Hongkongers was the moment that it came into effect on Tuesday at 11pm, ahead of the annual 1 July protest march, which itself had been declared illegal.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

After breaking into Hong Kong’s legislature, protesters left a message for Carrie Lam, the city’s top government official, spray-painted on a pillar: “It was you who taught me that peaceful protests are futile”.

To the young activists, the storming of the Legislative Council was an act of desperation. Three times in the past month, tremendous numbers of Hong Kongers — at one point estimated to be more than two million — marched peacefully to protest against a controversial extradition bill with China, which they fear would undermine Hong Kong’s judiciary and its freedom. The government suspended but did not withdraw the law.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

I was giving a talk about Tiananmen Square’s legacy at an Australian university about two years ago when a young Chinese student put up her hand during the question-and-answer session. “Why do we have to look back to this time in history?” she asked. “Why do you think it will be helpful to current and nowadays China, especially our young generation? Do you think it could be harmful to what the Chinese government calls the harmonious society?”

She wasn’t challenging the facts of what had happened on June 4, 1989. She was questioning the value of the knowledge itself. In the years since I wrote about Beijing’s success in erasing the killings of 1989 from collective memory, I’ve often heard Chinese students defending the government’s behavior as necessary.…  Seguir leyendo »

An injured man is taken to a hospital during an uprising in Chengdu, China, on June 4, 1989. (Kim Nygaard)

MundoAsia,

In the spring of 1989, Chinese pro-democracy activists filled Beijing's Tiananmen Square. For weeks, the protesters, led by students, stood in unprecedented defiance of the Communist regime. They called for respect for human rights and greater political participation amid the ambitious economic reforms spearhead by then-leader Deng Xiaoping. The protests eventually spread to 400 cities across China. Communist Party leaders, however, saw the protests as a threat to their hold on power and the political system. On the morning of June 4, the government sent armed troops to dissolve the demonstration in Tiananmen Square, killing and arresting activists. Though there is no official death toll, estimates range from several hundred to more than 10,000.…  Seguir leyendo »

The businessman Chau Chak Wing was awarded nearly $200,000 in a defamation lawsuit against one of Australia's biggest media companies. Credit Peter Rae/Epa-Efe, via Shutterstock

MundoOceanía, ,

In the decade I spent reporting from China, the most immediate obstacles to journalism were often physical. They took many forms: barricades blocking access to certain places; men in military buzz cuts trailing me; plainclothes thugs stationed in front of the homes of people I planned to interview; and of course, the threat of police detention. In one memorable incident, an official threw himself in front of the car I was riding in with colleagues to delay our departure, precipitating an unseemly shoving match. These physical manifestations of state power were designed to muzzle through intimidation and brute force, occasionally reinforced with threats of visa refusal.…  Seguir leyendo »

A defiant protester waving placards that read "Occupy Central" and "Civil Disobedience'' as riot police formed a phalanx outside government headquarters in Hong Kong on Saturday. Credit Vincent Yu/Associated Press

MundoAsia, ,

Overnight, my childhood home became a battleground. The Hong Kong streets where I grew up morphed into an alarming political flash point with riot police in gas masks firing tear-gas canisters at pro-democracy protesters, many of them defending themselves from the noxious white clouds with little more than umbrellas and plastic wrap.

Having lived for years in Beijing researching the legacy of China’s suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, I should not have been shocked. After unleashing the army on their own people a quarter-century ago, China’s leaders were left with a brooding sense of their own vulnerability and a determination to ensure demonstrations would never again spiral out of control.…  Seguir leyendo »