Analysis: Hong Kong’s Friday News Dump shows Beijing are intent on turning the screw

The ‘Friday news dump’, or as The West Wing terms it ‘Take out the Trash Day’, is a common political tactic for struggling governments wishing to bury bad news.

Friday 15 May 2020 in Hong Kong was a classic of the genre. The Hong Kong government calculated that if five controversial stories appeared just before the weekend, the scrutiny of each action would be limited.

But taken together cumulatively, their actions expose the rot which has set in Hong Kong. The coronavirus ceasefire could have been the opportunity to seek reconciliation in a divided city, instead – like other authoritarian states - Beijing have used the opportunity to turn the screw on the city’s pro-democracy movement.

The Hong Kong government started the day with the publication of a whitewashed inquiry into the protests. The 1,011-page document basically says the Hong Kong public is biased and should have given the police the benefit of the doubt for months of brutality.

Carrie Lam had resisted calls for an independent inquiry into the protest events on the basis that the Independent Police Complaints Commission would produce a reasonable report. But their report fails to account for the many well-documented and verified incidents, including by Amnesty International, of excessive use of force by the police. It exposes that there is no viable mechanism in Hong Kong to ensure accountability either for police brutality or police complicity with violence by triad gang members. It will only strengthen calls for a new independent inquiry. This may have to be convened internationally.

This news was followed by the removal of democrat legislator Dennis Kwok from his position as interim House Committee chair based on questionable legal advice. There have been months of gridlock in the legislature, as the election of a new House Committee chair has been strung out because of filibustering by democrats which was permitted by the temporary chair, Dennis Kwok. Despite Kwok chairing the election in line with the Legislative Council rules and procedures, the pro-establishment camp became increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress.

The President of the Legislative Council Andrew Leung issued a controversial ruling on Friday morning to override the Council’s rules and procedures and appoint an ally into the seat to break the deadlock. Without going into the technical details of this decision, the legal advice is highly controversial and disempowers the democrats in the Council who, despite representing the majority of Hong Kong’s population, have delay and filibustering as their only viable political tactic in the city’s semi-democratic legislature.

To compound things, two major stories about the sentencing of protestors emerged on Friday. First, a young man was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his involvement in the protests of 12 June 2019. The precedent set by his case means that the thousands of protestors charged with rioting will be found guilty and shown no mercy, with the sentencing guidelines suggesting a minimum starting point of 4-6 years in jail.

Furthermore, it was also revealed that five of the moderate democrats arrested on 18 April, including Hong Kong’s most senior barrister and grandfather of democracy, Martin Lee, have had their cases escalated to a higher court, suggesting that the prosecutors are seeking lengthy prison sentences to be applied against some of the most moderate and respected voices in the pro-democracy movement. 

Finally, in an unusual intervention, the Education Bureau slammed Hong Kong’s exam board for setting an ‘unpatriotic’ history question about the Sino-Japanese war. The Secretary for Education, Kevin Yeung said the reading material ‘deviated from objective facts’ and was ‘biased’. Given the 2012 furore and controversy in Hong Kong over mandatory patriotic education, which threw a teenage Joshua Wong into the limelight, this would normally have been a major story. But it generated barely a murmur.

The Friday news dump points to important insights. It is increasingly clear that Beijing are turning screws in Hong Kong in the wake of last year’s protests. What unites these moves is the framing of Hong Kong as a national security issue.

Since the appointment of new officials in Beijing to oversee Hong Kong earlier this year, every statement of the central government has focused on eradicating a perceived national security threat. Whether it is the nitpicking about the syllabus, maximising the sentencing of pro-democracy activists to jail, or ensuring that the security services are protected from proper scrutiny, every action is designed to ward against the perceived threat Hong Kong poses.

This week, the National People’s Congress meet for the annual “Two Sessions”. Increasingly rumours are circulating that Article 23 National Security Legislation will be imposed in Hong Kong to further ward against these external forces.

But this course of action will inevitably backfire. It is not external forces manipulating Hong Kongers to protest, but people with genuine grievances taking to the streets. In the words of Anson Chan, the former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, ‘they are counter-productive, destined only to foment the resumption of protests.’

Worse, the steady erosion of freedoms compromises the integrity of ‘one-country, two-systems’ in Hong Kong. We published a report which underlines the serious threat that the passage of badly drafted Article 23 national security legislation.

Indefinite polarisation and constant protests will eventually reduce Hong Kong’s attractiveness as a financial centre. Beijing can ill-afford this as Hong Kong is still a vital conduit for foreign capital, and the region’s top financial hub. Turning the screws may ultimately hurt Beijing as much as anyone else. 

By Benedict Rogers and Johnny Patterson