Dragon's snare

With China further tightening its grip over Hong Kong, protests in the city are unlikely to cease anytime soon

- NEHA S. BAJPAI

THE LONG sweltering summer of 2019 will be etched in Hong Kong’s history for the city’s biggest political crisis in decades. Choked by billowing clouds of teargas, gridlocked traffic, scathing slogans and burning barricades, the streets in Hong Kong saw a face-off between two million protestors and the police for over six months.

What started on June 9, 2019, as a peaceful mass protest against a now-revoked extradition bill has now evolved into a “fight for independence”. More than two decades after the end of the British colonial rule in Hong Kong, the Chinese government is all set to impose a new national security law in the city, essentially aimed at criminalising dissent.

As of now, the details of the proposed law have not been made public, but Hong Kongers are getting anxious about losing civil liberties like freedom of expression and an independent judiciary. “It is clear that the manner in which Beijing is going about implementing this law— by going above the heads of Hong Kong’s duly elected legislature and imposing the law by fiat—is a serious blow to Hong Kong’s rule of law and autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ formula,” says Antony Dapiran, a lawyer and author, who has documented the city’s protest culture in his two books, City of Protest (2017) and City on Fire (2020).