Hong Kong (Continuación)

Hong Kong during rioting, May 1967. Credit Associated Press

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Fifty years ago this weekend broke out what arguably remains the most violent and most traumatic incident in the city’s history since World War II. On May 6, 1967, a labor dispute at a factory producing plastic flowers in the district of Kowloon triggered an eight-month crisis that killed 51 people and injured 832, and momentarily brought the Cultural Revolution to Hong Kong.

Both internal and external factors contributed to the crisis. The policies of the British colonial government had heightened disparities between the bourgeois and the working class, and the poor faced even greater poverty after an influx of refugees fleeing communist China.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesting against Carrie Lam after she declared her victory in the chief executive election of Hong Kong in March. Credit Vincent Yu / Associated Press

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The selection in March of the Beijing loyalist Carrie Lam as Hong Kong’s next leader is the latest sign that China will continue to tighten its grip on this city. Political divisions will deepen and mistrust of the government will rise.

Ms. Lam, who was picked to be chief executive by an election committee stacked in Beijing’s favor, has long taken a hard-line approach to suppressing dissent. As the former No. 2 official under the unpopular outgoing leader, Leung Chun-ying, she presided over the political reform process that ignited the Umbrella Movement of 2014, in which tens of thousands of Hong Kongers occupied major thoroughfares for three months demanding democratic rights.…  Seguir leyendo »

A pro-democracy protester holds a yellow umbrella in front of Carrie Lam and her defeated opponents John Tsang and Woo Kwok-hing. Photo: Getty Images.

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Carrie Lam, formerly number two in the Hong Kong government, was selected as the Special Administrative Region’s new chief executive on 26 March. What does the process and her selection say about Hong Kong’s political future?

  1. Elections for Hong Kong's top job are still within Beijing's control. Due to the failure of political reform proposals in 2015, Lam was elected on the basis of 777 votes from the 1,194 members of the Chief Executive Election Committee. This 'small-circle' process was essentially the same as that used since 1997 (the only change being the expansion of the committee from its initial size of 800).
…  Seguir leyendo »
Hong Kong's three leadership candidates, from left: John Tsang, Carrie Lam-Cheng Yuet-Ngor and Woo Kok-hing before facing off in their first televised debate in Hong Kong this month.

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The more formidable challenger is John Tsang Chun-wah, Mr. Leung’s former finance secretary, whose folksy style and smooth P.R. skills contrast with Ms. Lam’s stern and strait-jacketed ways. Mr. Tsang has jokingly called the chief executive position a “thankless, rotten job.” His tickling likeness to the mustachioed Pringles character has earned him the endearing nickname Uncle Chips. Mr. Tsang’s platform promotes conciliation between the government and the various opposition forces, a popular view. He leads Ms. Lam by some 20 percentage points in many recent polls.

The pro-democracy camp, which has no credible candidate of its own but is eager to see Ms.…  Seguir leyendo »

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It’s election season in Hong Kong. Candidates for the city’s top leadership position are busily campaigning, and TV and the newspapers are filled with reports about their doings.

Yet it’s a strange kind of election, and visitors from abroad could be forgiven for finding the whole thing a bit bewildering. In this race, the contenders don’t waste any time reaching out to the public by making promises or explaining platforms. Instead, the candidates schmooze behind closed doors with property tycoons, seasoned politicians, and representatives of professional bodies and trade associations. That’s because those are the sorts of people who make up the 1,194-member election committee that will select the city’s next chief executive on March 26.…  Seguir leyendo »

A pro-democracy demonstrator standing on a banner depicting Leung Chun-ying during a rally outside his residence in Hong Kong this month. Credit Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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In the quiet of a recent Friday afternoon, Hong Kong’s hard-line leader, Leung Chun-ying, announced in a subdued, sometimes hesitant, voice that he would not seek a second term as chief executive. He cited the need for more time with his family: One of Mr. Leung’s daughters has long been afflicted with mental-health issues.

Within minutes, the news had inundated local media, and the political opposition — which won nearly 55 percent of the open seats in recent legislative elections — was cheering. Even a good part of the pro-government camp seemed to give a collective sigh of relief.

For a leader with persistently low approval ratings, Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters pushing against police officers outside the Chinese central government’s liaison office after thousands of people marched in Hong Kong this month. Credit Vincent Yu/Associated Press

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Two months after tumultuous legislative elections, and two years after the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement paralyzed the city center, Hong Kong is in the throes of another great political crisis.

Last Monday, the Chinese government intervened in the territory’s political affairs in an unprecedented way. Brazenly exploiting a technicality, and to the extreme, it barred two young legislators-elect who advocate for greater freedoms for Hong Kong from taking their seats.

The night before, demonstrators had briefly turned the cramped area around Beijing’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong into a battleground reminiscent of the worst of the 2014 protests, replete with police batons and tear gas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hong Kong and the Realities of China’s Rise

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I returned to my native Hong Kong in 1998 after more than two decades of working as a reporter in New York City. I was hired to start a journalism program at the University of Hong Kong, my alma mater, and train a new generation of reporters to tell the stories of Hong Kong, China and Asia. It was a big and timely beat.

Hong Kong was handed over to China after 156 years of British rule 10 months before I returned. In an ingenious stroke designed to reassure the international community and Hong Kong people, China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, devised the “one country, two systems” arrangement: Beijing would assume sovereignty, but Hong Kong would keep its rule of law and capitalist ways for 50 years.…  Seguir leyendo »

Can Beijing Stop Hong Kong’s Separatists?

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Two years after China’s leadership slammed the door on political reform for Hong Kong, six young candidates running on separatist platforms won seats in the Sept. 4 election for the territory’s legislature. The rapid rise of a youthful political movement intent on gaining more independence for Hong Kong is a direct result of Beijing’s tightening grip on this former British colony.

The ascendance of separatists is a crisis not only for the Hong Kong government and Beijing, which already faces independence movements in Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. It also threatens the political power of aging leaders of Hong Kong’s democratic camp, who have been advocating political reform for decades and now find themselves outflanked by young radicals with little patience for Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian ways.…  Seguir leyendo »

Localist political group Youngspiration candidate Yau Wai-ching campaigns during the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong on 4 September 2016. Photo by Getty Images.

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It has been a tumultuous recent period in Hong Kong politics. Following the 79-day ‘occupy’ movement in autumn 2014 and the subsequent rejection of a political reform package in 2015, Sunday’s elections for Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) represented an important moment for the territory. Tensions have been growing between Hong Kong and both the central government in Beijing and mainland Chinese economic and social influence in Hong Kong.

Understanding Hong Kong’s complex electoral system is important to interpreting the results.  Half of LegCo’s 70 seats come from geographical constituencies, with the other 35 from functional constituencies: 30 of these cover professional, social, and labour groups (for a list see here) with relatively small electorates, and five are selected by the rest of the electorate from district councilors using a list system with proportional representation.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters outside government headquarters in Hong Kong this month. Kin Cheung/Associated Press

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The run-up to the Sept. 4 election for Legislative Council is getting tense, and the governments of both Hong Kong and Beijing are watching with keen interest. For the first time, a crop of fresh-faced candidates who cut their political teeth during the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014 are hoping to bring to the lawmaking body their battle to emancipate Hong Kong from Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian control.

The activists, most of whom are in their 20s, no longer believe in the promises of the “one country, two systems” principle set out in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution since Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.…  Seguir leyendo »

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A Hong Kong publisher specializing in books banned in China has disappeared mysteriously, sowing fear among Hong Kongers that the Chinese government is growing bolder about encroaching on their liberties. As the saga continues to unfold, Beijing is reacting bizarrely, and in ways that suggest that the story is the extension of a long-running power struggle at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mighty Current is an obscure Hong Kong publishing company that churns out gossipy titles about China and its top leaders. On Dec. 30, Lee Bo, 65, an editor at the company, received a phone order for a dozen books, including several about the private life of President Xi Jinping.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong stage a walkout before an address by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in January. Credit Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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The debate over how Hong Kong’s leader should be elected in 2017 has flared up again. Later this week the local legislature is expected to vote on a controversial plan by the Chinese government — the one that triggered the Umbrella Movement and the lengthy occupation of several major neighborhoods in the city last fall.

The Chinese government proposes that candidates for the position of Hong Kong chief executive be preselected by a handpicked nomination committee. Democrats in Hong Kong argue that this vetting system guts Beijing’s promise to Hong Kongers that they would get to elect their top official by universal suffrage.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Martin Lee and Anson Chan are leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement advocating for the autonomy promised under China’s “one country, two systems” governance model. Last week, they spoke with The Post’s Lally Weymouth in Hong Kong about the effect of student protests, the need for the United States to speak out and their fear that important freedoms may be slipping away. Excerpts:

Martin Lee: The whole reason for the [2014 student protest] movement was because Beijing kept on postponing democracy for Hong Kong. It was originally promised to us that 10 years after the [1997] handover, Hong Kong could have democracy both for the election of the chief executive as well as the entire legislature.…  Seguir leyendo »

Giving Up on Hong Kong

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In 1947, my 40-year-old grandfather left his comfortable teaching position in Guangzhou, in southern China, to search for a job in Hong Kong.

Two years later, as civil war raged in China, my grandparents and their seven children packed into a crowded train filled with refugees fleeing to Hong Kong, the war-ravaged British colony still struggling to recover from the Japanese occupation. They were among the hundreds of thousands of people escaping to Hong Kong in the months before the Communist Party took control of China in October 1949.

During the past century, mainland Chinese people have gotten used to leaving their homeland.…  Seguir leyendo »

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L’évacuation des derniers manifestants pro-démocratie de la zone occupée de Causeway Bay, au centre-ville de Hongkong, marque la fin de la «révolte des parapluies». Le grand mouvement populaire qui secoue l’ancienne colonie britannique depuis maintenant plus de deux mois se termine dans une certaine indifférence, bien loin de l’effervescence collective des grands rassemblements des premières semaines. Ils n’étaient d’ailleurs plus qu’une poignée d’irréductibles, ce lundi, à défier encore la police aux cris de «nous reviendrons». Les récentes divisions apparues au sein des différents leaders du mouvement, conjuguées au mécontentement grandissant de la population locale, ont fini par heurter la légitimité même de la contestation.…  Seguir leyendo »

Unas chinas imprevisibles

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«La historia avanza a pasos de paloma», escribe Friedrich Nietzsche. Desde hace más de un siglo, ninguna profecía se ha confirmado mejor. Hoy en día, al igual que en 1914 (la guerra que nadie quería), en 1917 (la revolución bolchevique inesperada) o en 1989 (la caída del Muro de Berlín imprevista), nadie sabe qué acontecimiento de apariencia menor determinará nuestro futuro colectivo. En este orden de cosas, y por haber visto a Joshua Wong en Hong Kong, me pregunto si la China de mañana se parecerá a Joshua Wong o al presidente Xi Jinping.

Xi Jinping reina en Pekín mientras que Joshua Wong solo tiene dieciocho años y no ejerce ningún poder, pero es la figura emblemática de la revuelta de los jóvenes de Hong Kong contra la dictadura comunista.…  Seguir leyendo »

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"We'll be back" banners and posters proclaimed on the 75th and final day of the pro-democracy protests that have upended Hong Kong.

Whether that's a threat or a wan hope depends on who you ask right now.

The students that formed the "Umbrella Movement" -- named for the humble umbrella used to protect against tear gas and pepper spray -- are morose but defiant, and more alienated than ever.

Pro-government supporters have transformed from being rather passionless parrots of the Beijing line into fire-breathing zealots demanding Hong Kong police bash the heads of anyone stepping into the streets.

Emotions are clearly raw, and probably will continue to be into 2015.…  Seguir leyendo »

Is Beijing breaching the Joint Declaration?

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Thirty years ago this month, Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, under which London agreed to restore Hong Kong to China in 1997 and Beijing spelled out its policy of “one country, two systems” for the then British colony, which would “enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defense affairs which are the responsibilities of the Central People’s Government” for 50 years, that is, until 2047.

In July, the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee announced that it would conduct an inquiry into the United Kingdom’s relations with Hong Kong. According to the committee, the inquiry will consider how the British government monitors the implementation of the Joint Declaration, as well as the U.K.’s…  Seguir leyendo »

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The peaceful protesters occupying the streets of Hong Kong for more than two months have been surprisingly persistent in their pursuit of genuine universal suffrage. It is welcome news that some student leaders are considering bringing the occupation to an end. They are exhausted and have been unwilling to go home without substantial concessions from the Hong Kong and Beijing governments.

Many protesters still think too little has been achieved. They see the lack of concessions from the Hong Kong government as a reason to continue pressing on. I disagree. The Umbrella Movement has awakened the democratic aspirations of a whole generation of Hong Kong people.…  Seguir leyendo »