Hong Kong on a slow boil a year after protesters first charged Parliament

HONG KONG - The streets of Hong Kong, though not as bustling as they once were, are now calm compared to the scene a year ago when hundreds of thousands marched peacefully in opposition to the extradition Bill and the first storming of the city's Parliament building late in the night.

One year on, the anti-government movement has gone from its peak last year when demonstrations drew unprecedented crowds of a million or two, to smaller scale protests by thousands at most.

In recent weeks, calls for protest participation have typically pulled in smaller groups ranging from dozens to hundreds.

On Tuesday (June 9), the one-year anniversary of the day a million people took to the streets in protest of the extradition Bill, was marked by a mere hundred or so protesters gathered at lunchtime in a mall in Central.

In the evening, hundreds, many carrying umbrellas, marched in Central in defiance of police warning, taking over parts of the roads. This prompted officers to give chase to disperse the crowd.

Besides fears of infection during the coronavirus outbreak, another deterrent has been a swifter and a more proactive policing strategy in action.

Assistant Professor Lawrence Ho, a policing expert from the Education University of Hong Kong, said street confrontations and violence - both a common feature in the unrest last year - have been substantially reduced.

He pointed out that the majority of Hong Kong protesters support peace, rationality and are non-violent, but some radicals might have taken advantage of the peaceful demonstrators' "conditional tolerance and sympathy" last year.

But the movement has waned since January, as the police conduct mass arrests on the streets before protests even began, Prof Ho said, adding that prosecution of netizen organisers have also unnerved demonstrators.

From June 9 last year till end May this year, the police have arrested 8,986 people aged between 11 and 84 at various protests for offences including rioting, illegal assembly, causing hurt to others, arson, possessing weapons and obstructing justice.

So far, the police said 1,808 individuals have been charged, 15 were released after given warnings, 1,498 were released unconditionally and 5,665 cases are still under investigation.

Of those charged, 612 face up to 10 years in jail for rioting.

Of the total number arrested, 1,609 or 18 per cent are under the age of 18. The police said two in five of those arrested are students.

Asked how far the revised approach under new police chief Chris Tang would go in stamping out protests, Prof Ho said: "We are not likely to have large scale confrontation in this atmosphere, but public trust towards the government and police cannot not be easily regained if no obvious step is taken in the political arena to respond to the allegation of police power abuse and partiality."

The police have come under fire for using excessive force when dealing with protesters, as well as beating them up. These allegations have been dismissed by the police.

Tensions were renewed in the past two weeks after Beijing on May 22 announced that it would bypass Hong Kong's Parliament and directly enforce a national security law in the territory.

The move, viewed by some as the death knell of the "one country, two systems" principle and an erosion of freedoms, fanned fears of further unrest and drew rallying cries online for protests.

Last weekend, an alliance of 23 labour unions across 20 industries said it would hold a referendum next Sunday (June 14) among its thousands of members to ask if they would support a strike against Beijing's plan for the new law.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday (June 9) slammed the call for a strike as something that is against the interests of Hong Kongers, particularly when the economy is in recession.

"I do not believe that Hong Kong people welcome that sort of strike action when the greatest worry of many people is losing their jobs and facing difficulties in their daily living," she said ahead of her weekly Executive Council meeting.

Asked if she regretted the handling of the now-scrapped extradition Bill, which led more than seven months' of unrest last year, Mrs Lam's answer was that everyone needed to "learn a lesson".

She also reassured Hong Kongers "very categorically" that Beijing's policy towards Hong Kong has not changed, as it is enshrined in the establishment of the territory under the "one country, two systems" principle where the city will have a high degree of autonomy for 50 years from the 1997 handover.

"And national security should be very much a core part of that," Mrs Lam said.

Beijing's decision to proceed with enacting the national security law in Hong Kong prompted United States President Donald Trump to announce on May 29 that China had broken its word over Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and the territory no longer warranted US economic privileges, among other things.

The move by the US was blasted by the Hong Kong government, which accused the US of smearing and demonising "the legitimate rights and duty of our sovereign to safeguard national security".

Mrs Lam's remarks come after a rare speech on Monday (June 8) by Beijing official Zhang Xiaoming, who warned that the stronger the commitment to the new national security law, the higher the possibility of extending the "one country, two systems" arrangement beyond 2047.

"What kind of record will Hong Kong show to the people of the whole country, represented by the then National People's Congress, for a new mandate?" the deputy director of Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said in an online seminar on Basic Law.

In particular, Mr Zhang said Hong Kong's problem is a political one and not economic as previously insisted by Beijing.

"I believe Hong Kong's key problem is not the economy. It has nothing to do with housing issues that plague residents, bread and butter issues to do with jobs and livelihood, or social mobility of young people, but a political problem."

This U-turn in thinking points towards Beijing's main concern - the Hong Kong Legislative Council (Legco) election expected in early September, said Associate Professor Alfred Wu of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

"I think Beijing's goal is very clear. They want (the pro-establishment camp) to win the Legco election.

"In the last round (in 2016), the pro-democracy group was doing very well but the government disqualified a number of them (after an oath-taking controversy), but I think this time round, they may just disqualify them at the start," said Prof Wu.

The pan-democrats on Tuesday said contests to choose their candidates for the Sept 6 Legco election will be held on July 11 and July 12.

Occupy Central founder Benny Tai, an organiser of the primaries, warned during the briefing that the new national security law could be used to disqualify pan-democratic candidates.