Our story started in a small city near the South China Sea, whose unfortunate geopolitical conditions made it under a constant struggle for freedom and democracy.
One quarrel after another, China's violations on Hong Kong's autonomy increased, eventually drawing in millions of people in unprecedented form to pan-democracy organizations and protests.
Though the people stood united against China and political activism was at a high, the excessive violence led to a repressive national security bill, that harshly criminalized protestors and other dissidents.
This crackdown on Hong Kong's democracy movement is a part of China's larger scheme for expanding their power; it's a warning sign for countries not to mess with China's territorial disputes. Maybe this was our last chance to stop China's expansion before it became too powerful.
China has followed through on its plan to shut down any opposition from Hong Kong through the security law, which allowed them to remove an entire group of pan-democracy politicians. This is extremely concerning because it accelerates the transition from Hong Kong to just another Chinese city like Shenzen, a sentiment that many Hong Kongers already share. The western countries should remember to limit China's territorial expansion amidst distractions like COVID, because this may deter or support the freedom of the future, depending on how we act now.
While China isn't exactly following the original Marxist-Leninist ideals of class struggle and peasant revolution, it is certainly following its revised ideology, the most recent development of which includes military power, territorial expansion, and global trade through the Belt and Road Initiative and other projects.
Xi's China is power-hungry, and is willing to impose its singular culture, history, and party ideology on the world. This understanding contextualizes the story of Hong Kong, which is one of the victims of China's new development as an emerging world superpower. For example, Cantonese is not the official language used by the Party, and thus is not acceptable (one culture, one nation).
Carrie Lam, the current Chief Executive, argued that the US has double standards for rioters, since they supported Hong Kong riots but condemned the US Capitol riots. But this is a different issue; the Hong Kong people had rights - promised rights - taken away over a long period of time, ever since it was handed over to China. While it might be true that a single Party is more efficient, what is the point of a government if it doesn't reflect the people's beliefs and needs? Is democracy really worth giving up for authoritarianism?
Under the rule of Xi, China is starting to have more quarrels with neighboring countries over land, which isn't characteristic of China historically. The rule of Xi aims to make China strong, and sometimes that means being aggressive and expanding the military. It's worrying for all of us because the two superpowers, US/China, are somehow linked through these territorial disputes (ex: if a Chinese ship attacks a Japanese ship each other, the US will have to respond because it has a diplomatic duty to, which will escalate the fight even more, which brings in even more countries, and so on).
Where does HK fit into all this? Hong Kong's recent "defeat" is a warning that China is not playing around with territorial disputes. The US/EU/Britain had a chance to stop China from cracking down on civil rights in Hong Kong, but they didn't; now we will have to deal with the consequences, namely a militant and territory-hungry China. Hong Kong is likely to have its democratic processes replaced by the mono-Party, and China's new territories will likely be under similar rule. Do we want to live in a world without free speech or fair elections? One where anyone could be jailed for speaking out against the state?