Primaries and Disqualifications (Lee Yee)
Elsie Leung said, not disclosing all of the provisions of the National Security Law (NSL) is to prevent invoking clashes in society, and that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) has already conducted sufficient consultations with different sectors.
Without disclosing the provisions of the NSL, what was used to consult these different sectors? This point alone discloses how absolutely absurd the so-called “sufficient consultations”, “different sectors”, and frankly, her entire statement are.
There have been commotions in the online community around the suggestion of achieving international sanctions through large-scale disqualifications, focusing mainly on the contradictions between the pro-democracy camp’s primaries and a large number of candidates. Primaries mean an aggregation of votes, to avoid an overextended list of candidates who would be dividing up the votes and possibly leading to the reduction of the number of elected seats. Most of the pro-democracy camp, including young candidates, are supportive of having primaries. The primary selection mechanism stipulates that only the winners are able stand for election. Some suggested that even the losers from the primaries should go ahead and stand for election, and were criticized for violating the principles of primaries.
These principles, however, were drafted before the NSL. It was when the legal profession and some Democrats still believed there was room for negotiation, when the retired former Chief Justice Honorable Andrew Li Kwok-nang proposed to protect the implementation details within Hong Kong under the premise of accepting the NSL. Some Democrats also suggested to bring back Article 23 in place of the implementation of the NSL by NPC, or to adopt the sunset clause. If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is willing to bargain, the red line for disqualifications of candidates could be drawn at the absolute “anti-NSL”, while turning a blind eye towards the Democrats who are willing to negotiate, such that LegCo would continue to have “decorative” Democrats.
The CCP categorically rejected all bargaining, and Andrew Li accused the Hong Kong NSL as completely undermining the independent judicial power guaranteed by the Basic Law. Martin Lee stated that “the Hong Kong NSL must be resisted fully”, and “people whose attention is being diverted to the devil in the details have already fallen into the trap devised by the CCP”. Moderates who wish to main the current system, to avoid “scorching-earth”, are already at a dead end.
The complete societal rift induced by the NSL is simple: on one side, you have people who blindly support an NSL without any disclosed provisions, including the pro-Beijing camp and the voluntarily “visually-impaired”; on the other side, you have citizens who support democracy. According to a poll conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion at the end of last month, 96% of the “supporters of the pro-democracy camp” opposed the NSL, and only 1% supported the law; Among those who are “non supporters of the pro-democracy camp”, 62% expressed support towards having the NSL implemented by the NPC, but those who opposed still amounted to 29%.
This was a poll done a month ago. With those who were willing to negotiate being rejected at this point, the societal rift should be more apparent. The situation is clear: any participant of the pro-democracy camp’s primaries, given that they have not been too vocal about opposing the NSL, even if they do win the primaries, have are able to join the election without being disqualified, they could still end up not winning the election. If citizens are to woefully cast their votes for candidates who do not oppose the NSL, looking at the poll, there’s only a 1% chance among the “supporters of the pro-democracy camp”.
Another situation that is clear: those who have openly and clearly opposed the NSL and somehow escape the fate of disqualification of candidacy is almost impossible. Even if there were, the voters would be doubtful of the candidates’ true stance, leading to a slim chance of getting elected.
As such, for the pro-democracy candidates, it is almost impossible to either oppose the NSL or to be disqualified for opposing. This, is precisely why the original intent of an aggregation of votes through the mechanism of primaries is likely to fail.
Disregard the results of the primaries. Flood the election with a loud and clear message of anti-NSL from a whale of candidates. This is the only way out. Having all or the majority being disqualified would be an obvious deprivation of Hongkongers’ right to vote, a guaranteed way to get international attention.
How much of a shockwave will international sanctions send to the CCP? An opinion piece published in Taiwan suggested that a senior Chinese official who may be sanctioned by the US because of the Hong Kong NSL has hidden assets in the US that are worth as much as US$3.1 billion. In 2013, Snowden, a former CIA employee who is now in Russia, announced that Chinese officials’ foreign deposits amounted to US$4.8 trillion. In normal circumstances, cash holdings account for only one-third of total assets, meaning that the total assets should amount to tens of trillions of US dollars (Hong Kong’s foreign exchange reserves are only about US$440 billion). And these were figures from 7 years ago.
International sanctions are, inevitably, internationally “earth-scorching”, where the side carrying out the sanctions will also suffer immensely. Freezing the assets of sanctioned officials in foreign countries will not help the sanctioning parties at all. Senior Chinese officials could care less about the Basic Law and Hong Kong’s human rights, but to laugh off one’s own properties? This is Hong Kong’s “earth-scorching” bargaining chip.
