Again and again throughout the year, the central government in Beijing stamped out nearly everything Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement had stood for.
As the days of 2021 dwindled, so did any remaining traces of democracy in Hong Kong. On Wednesday, a vocal pro-democracy media outlet — one of the last openly critical voices in the city — closed after a police raid. Earlier in December, the opposition was shut out from elections under a new law that puts all candidates to a loyalty test. And monuments commemorating the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were taken down. Again and again throughout the year, the city’s authorities and the central government in Beijing stamped out nearly everything the pro-democracy movement had stood for. Activists fled abroad or were locked up under the draconian National Security Law imposed on the city 18 months ago. Unions and other independent organizations closed down. Where once Hong Kong allowed “open opposition and questioning of the government’s core policies and legitimacy… any meaningful policy debates will now take place among a small circle of government loyalists,” said Kurt Tong, partner at The Asia Group and former U.S. consul general in Hong Kong and Macao. The days when the former British colony was considered a bastion of freedom fade in memory. Returned to China in 1997, Hong Kong has endured an overhaul of its political system and a crackdown on political dissent. Authorities sought to suppress antigovernment sentiment that led to months of political strife in 2019. The most recent example was Wednesday’s raid by Hong Kong police on the online pro-democracy news outlet Stand News. Seven people were arrested — among them two current and former editors and four former board members, including a popular singer, Denise Ho — for alleged sedition under a colonial-era ordinance.
