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How China crushed Hong Kong
- China pledged to maintain Hong Kong's free and open society for at least the next 50 years, despite the Communist Party's long-standing ambition for full control and plans to impose a national security law.
- The ruling party began laying foundations for total control in the 1980s and 1990s, with Xi Jinping intensifying efforts after 2012, including the introduction of legislation to try criminal suspects on the mainland.
- Over decades, the Communist Party infiltrated Hong Kong's civil service, security forces, and society, allegedly deploying over 80,000 mainland officials with fake identities to secure key roles and establish underground party cells.
- Infiltration tactics involved cultivating relationships with civil society figures through the United Front, offering financial incentives, power, and special favors to business leaders, while pressuring or intimidating dissenters like Dr. Chung with threats of imprisonment and exile.
- Current risks include the potential use of government violence to suppress protests, the silencing of free speech through economic leverage, and the erosion of freedoms by authoritarian strategies that experts claim are now operating in other global societies.
- Individual perspectives range from Anna Kwok's uncertainty about returning due to the fear of five to ten-year prison sentences to Dr. Chung's resolve to continue speaking out despite threats, with some Hong Kongers rejecting earlier hopes of eventual reunification following the 1950s.
- The Hong Kong Democracy Council aims to guide policy and discourage further rights erosion, while public demonstrations in London three years post-protests highlight global lessons regarding China's use of economic influence to control international discourse.
- Historical shifts note that while China once relied on Hong Kong for business and financial expertise and the economic power balance reversed by the mid-2000s, a dominant political system now poses potential threats to the world as China's wealth increases.