One country, two systems

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One country, two systems (一國兩制) was a Chinese political and economic system proposed by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s to get Hong Kong and Macau back from Britain and Portugal, both former imperial states.

History

The "one country / two systems" arrangement was set up when Britain handed over rule of Hong Kong in 1997. The arrangement meant that Hong Kong and Macau were officially Chinese territory, but they would guarantee at least 50 years of strong self-rule in politics, economy and society, which in principle is similar to before the handover to China.

In the late 1990s, Britain and Portugal gave their final colonies, Hong Kong and Macau respectively, to China. However, as both had been influenced by their colonial masters, the powers both made agreements saying that the two cities would have home rule for at least 50 years. This means that China will be able to revoke the home rule from the cities in 2047 for Hong Kong and 2049 for Macau. In Hong Kong, the system was designed primarily to achieve the dual objectives of preserving a prosperous Hong Kong while securing China’s wider national interests of territorial sovereignty.

Decline and death in Hong Kong

While the one country, two systems principle was well adhered to between 1997 and 2000, when Hong Kong was first returned to China, the 2010s saw a backlash from many liberal Hong Kong citizens as the Communist Party of China tried to intervene actively in Hong Kong's politics. This corresponded with General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping's consolidation of power within mainland China. It hasn't yet been 50 years yet, but the one country, two systems principle is increasingly being undermined.

Around April 2019, China drafted laws which would have allowed for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. Hong Kong citizens were naturally alarmed; massive pro-democracy protests against the law began shortly afterwards. Due to a timid response by the Beijing-friendly Hong Kong government, protests continued throughout the year, culminating in local council elections in November 2019 where pro-democracy candidates won in a landslide.

COVID-19 briefly halted the scale of the protests. Rather than let the protests simmer down, however, China elected to draft an even more draconian "national security law" to apply to Hong Kong, that essentially gives Beijing the right to quell any dissent in Hong Kong against Beijing rule, using China's authoritarian legal system. This law, passed on June 30, 2020, was designed to apply to anyone, anywhere in the world, with Beijing directly setting up its own national security agency in Hong Kong. "Serious" national security cases will be tried in Chinese courts, by Chinese judges. Merely unfurling a flag advocating Hong Kong's independence is enough to get you arrested under this law. The response from Western nations (for now, at least) was some rather toothless finger-wagging.

So, as of June 30, 2020, "one country, two systems" can effectively be said to be dead in Hong Kong.

For now, the "one country two systems" arrangement is still alive in Macau. Macau's system lacked many of the British-inspired democratic elements of Hong Kong's arrangement, and Macau's government was much more closely tied with the Chinese government, having had elements of China's communist party integrated into the island's government even 33 years before independence. Thus, very little of the unrest that sprung up in Hong Kong during 2019 was seen in Macau.

One country, Xi's system

Since June 2020, China has continued to tighten the noose on many freedoms Hong Kong previously enjoyed such as freedom of speech... bringing the island closer and closer to the rigid authoritarianism of the mainland, as dictated by Xi Jinping.

• Fearing any bit of pro-democracy power in the Legco, in late July 2020, Hong Kong authorities disqualified 12 pro-democracy candidates from upcoming elections. A day later, the elections were postponed altogether (conveniently citing COVID-19 as a reason).
• In November 2020, Beijing issued a new directive to disqualify lawmakers it deemed "unpatriotic". Conveniently, four lawmakers that were part of the 12 candidates barred from the postponed election were deemed "unpatriotic" enough to be disqualified almost immediately. This resulted in pro-democracy representatives resigning en masse, declaring that the legislature was no longer a legitimate political platform. Democratic Party leader Wu Chi-wai, stating the obvious, commented that China had "totally given up on ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong".
• By January 2021, China was cracking down further on dissent and accelerated using the "National Security Law" to crush opposition voices. On January 6^th 2021, 53 pro-democracy activists were arrested under the guise of the law. By March 2021, Hong Kong made its 100th arrest under this law. High profile people arrested under the law include media tycoon and Trump shill Jimmy Lai (whose arrest is the only one that was justified due to his attempt to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election) and activist/politician Joshua Wong.
• In early February 2021, Hong Kong ordered schools to adopt a more patriotic curriculum (even overhauling the kindergarten-age curriculum to include propaganda) and advised teachers to report any breaches of the national security law.
• In March 2021, China implemented a major overhaul to Hong Kong's election system, designed to eradicate what little political opposition was left. The proportion of directly elected representatives in the Legco was halved. The "election committee" that chose Hong Kong's chief executive was significantly expanded in size with many additional unelected seats, with many seats that were previously held by directly elected district councilors abolished. All candidates were required to be vetted for political loyalty to China.
• Having satisfactorily reformed the legislature to crush all opposition, in April 2021 a new "election" date was announced for December 19, 2021. Not surprisingly, almost all seats in the "patriots only" election were won by pro-Beijing and pro-establishment candidates. However, despite the fact that even the mere suggestion of an election boycott online was enough to get you arrested by the police, in a sign of Hong Kong citizens' low enthusiasm for this new political arrangement, "election" turnout was very low, at 30.2%, half the turnout of the previous poll in 2016.

In response to the increasing authoritarianism in Hong Kong, in late January 2021, Britain opened up a visa scheme for Hong Kong residents with a British National (Overseas) passport, offering a possible fast track for these passport holders to UK citizenship. To no one's surprise, a significant number of Hong Kong residents took advantage of that offer, or chose to emigrate to other nations, including Taiwan.

See also

• Political parties of Hong Kong
• Kashmir

External links

• China is erasing its border with Hong Kong