Fight for freedom

Fight for freedom

Despite enormous odds, Hong Kong scores a win for liberal values.

In a significant victory for protesters in Hong Kong, its chief executive Carrie Lam finally announced the formal withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill that made millions hit the streets since June. The bill would have allowed Hong Kong to extradite fugitives to mainland China, undermining the city’s special status under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ mechanism. After relentless demonstrations by young Hongkongers, the city administration agreed to their main demand. However, protesters want their other demands – including an independent inquiry into police brutality and direct democratic elections – to be fulfilled as well.

At the heart of the Hong Kong unrest lies a clash of ideas. Hongkongers still adhere to democratic, liberal values they inherited from the British. When Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997, it was far more prosperous than any other region of China and accrued several economic advantages to Beijing. However, China’s meteoric growth over the last two decades has meant that those advantages have decreased over time – although they still exist – and Hong Kong is no longer seen as special by Beijing. The latter has since proceeded to slowly erode Hong Kong’s separate political mechanism. The protests today are a pushback against those designs.

What happens in Hong Kong is of special interest in India. It is something of a mystery, for example, why China consistently sides with Pakistan against India in any dispute, and attempts otherwise to block India’s rise, when India offers far more commercial opportunities to China than Pakistan does. The most plausible answer to this conundrum is that India is a functioning democracy, and China fears its ‘contagion’ effect. Something similar could be said of Hong Kong as well. The Hong Kong unrest signifies a resurgence of liberal values, against the global onslaught of authoritarian nationalism, whose effects can be felt in India too.