Violence Loses in a Civil Society
An Odd Government Press Release on the 5th Anniversary of NSL Reveals a Hong Kong Government Unsettled by Their Own Violence Against Hong Kong Political Prisoners
It’s not considered good manners in Hong Kong Democratic circles to bring up the very clear fact that once the 2019 protest turned violent, the government gained the upper hand.
We went from millions in the streets in June and July of 2019, to thousands in the fall of 2019 turning out to do battle with the Hong Kong Police. I always thought the CCP couldn’t believe their good luck in having the fight over Hong Kong democracy go from millions of middle classes citizens gaining global support, to ineffective unarmed street protesters.
Hong Kong’s young protesters were quite brave in going out to engage police. More than a few times I expected the police to open fire and the 30,000 Chinese Public Security Bureau troops sitting in Shenzhen to crossover into Kowloon. It was not a remote idea in fall of 2019 to fear a repeat of June 1989 in Hong Kong.
My boss, Jimmy Lai, and Cardinal Zen earned the scorn of many of the younger activists as they called for restraint. Mr. Lai knew the damage the scenes of violence did to the movement in the West and that the vital middle class would not turn out to demonstrate with violence surrounding them. Cardinal Zen, who understands the CCP better than most, knew the deadly outcome for the young Hong Kong people if Beijing moved.
I was in the Zen camp, in that having seen street violence in Asia, I was certain that a bunch of kids in skinny jeans and lulu lemon leggings were not a match for the Hong Kong Police nor the Chinese PSB. I was not wrong.
As I watched the daily news reports of Jimmy Lai’s NSL trial it became obvious, as it has now become to Beijing, that Mr. Lai opposed the violence. That truth won’t help him with Hong Kong authorities, as a conviction is a must. But inside the CCP in Beijing, there is a growing unease with the brutal treatment of a 77-year-old in custody. A man who becomes a martyr if he perishes behind bars. As one CCP diplomat told a businessman who dared to bring up Jimmy; “He dies, Hong Kong pays for decades”.
The Hong Kong government knows this, and that is why we were treated on June 30th at 23:19, the day before the July 1st National Day, to a late-night press release, meant more for Beijing than the West. A release that ended with but was centered around 500 words claiming Hong Kong authorities are treating Jimmy Lai well.
https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202506/30/P2025063000925.htm
500 words of, “Nothing to see here”? Really?
Yet there is something to see. Hong Kong was a true global city, a western financial center that served the key economic needs of China. Now it imprisons well over 800 political prisoners for what are overwhelmingly nonviolent offenses. What holds those political activists in the prisoners is the use of force. Force is violence.
Violence, or most common, the threat of violence is Hong Kong’s currency of governance today. That’s not the type of governance that attracts capital, encourages economic activity, or keeps in Hong Kong the talent an international financial center requires.
Hong Kong is trapped in a low-level cycle of violence, not enough to keep troops on the streets, but more than enough to drive away the business and financial industries Hong Kong, and China, need to keep up with the West. Hong Kong authorities need an out.
Jimmy Lai, my boss, is willing to depart Hong Kong. He is 77. The CCP has taken his business, taken his freedom, and damaged his health. He’s not going to bend, but he is willing to leave. His departure, just as with the departure of other political prisoners free’s not only those non-violent activists held in prison, but it also free’s Hong Kong from the cost of the violence needed to hold political prisoners in the face of international condemnation and the penalties that come with that condemnation.
Hong Kong is ready to move on. Hong Kong is ready to free up its economy. But first, Hong Kong needs to free its political prisoners.
In fairness, I think it is valid to assert that the dwindling numbers of non-violent protesters as time went on was in part due to escalating police violence, much of which was often random and without provocation.
The police started the cycle of violence when they let rubber bullets fly in June against non violent protesters trying to block an extremely unpopular extradition bill that the refused to compromise on.