The Fall of Hong Kong

Written two days after protesters broke into the Legislative Council. Three weeks later I revised it as The Police, Triads, and the Yuen Long Attacks.

The fall is inevitable. Hong Kong, as it sits atop a bottomless, authoritarian-laced chasm, the stability of its ground, held into place by its post-colonial identity, crumbles each day. There is a pessimism deeply ingrained into the Hong Kong youth, one that has continued to sink as their voice becomes severely mitigated to the point of being unable to represent themselves. The frustration reached a crescendo with the expansion of the extradition law to China, with millions demanding the removal of the bill, and for the Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, which Hong Kongers have long expressed anathema towards, to step down. After nearly a month, and the government failing to accede to the demands of the people, the inaction built a mixture of frustration and desperation, leading to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) to be broken into and vandalized by around one hundred protestors. This reaction comes as no surprise with the continued dismissal of millions of people’s demands, and the government’s praise for the police after the active assault on its citizens. The rift between the government, the police, and the people are at an all-time high, with tangible police conspiracies, bubbling up on Reddit and elsewhere.

The steep order that protestors are demanding are within their rights as an autonomous region but directly conflict with China’s reintegration plans and rigid ideologies. This is where the protests become dangerous. In a show of martyrdom, Hong Kongers seem willing to show their neighbors that they will not allow their culture to easily become victim to China’s authoritarian conquest. The anger – the protests – China will be unable to uproot Hong Kong’s culture under a true democracy. The protests are poking the red northern beast, encouraging a military crackdown to solidify its authority, breaching the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Hong Kong is already dead, but not without people fighting for it until the very last day in 2047 when Hong Kong falls under the oppressive tutelage of the People’s Republic of China.