Xia Baolong, currently Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office and former Deputy Party Secretary of Zhejiang who allegedly ordered the removal of thousands of crosses from churches, paid a six-day visit to Hong Kong to officiate in the National Security Education Day.
He made many speeches on “one country, two systems.” He said that subversive elements in Hong Kong and Macao would not stop and that external forces from the United States and the West would not be happy about this and might conspire and come back again anytime, so all should strive to defend Hong Kong and Macao. He also made explicit the relationship between “one country, two systems” and national security—protecting national security is equivalent to protecting “one country, two systems” and Hong Kong’s prosperity, democracy, and freedom. All Hongkongers must be patriots, not “bystanders.” In other words, they have lost their freedom not to express loyalty to China.
In other words, “one country, two systems” becomes increasingly conditional rather than a fundamental policy for Hong Kong. It can be amended if not reversed at any time. I jokingly asked my friends whether burials of non-patriots would be banned in Hong Kong, following the example of medieval Europe churches that did not allow suicides, criminals, and excommunicated persons to be buried in the churchyard.
The Chinese Communist Party boasts that “one country, two systems” is an unprecedented great innovation. Given the above, its greatness becomes increasingly doubtful. So, is it unprecedented?
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Adam Lui Yuen-chung, head of the History Department and a Qing history expert, said that the separate rule of the Manchu and the Han Chinese was already a form of “one country, two systems.”
If this example is too old and irrelevant to Hong Kong, the opening of Hong Kong as a British colony marked the beginning of Hong Kong’s “two systems.” Five days after declaring the opening of Hong Kong, Gordon Bremer, Commander-in-Chief, and Charles Elliot, Plenipotentiary to China, issued a proclamation “To the Chinese Inhabitants of Hongkong,” which not only announced British takeover of Hong Kong, but also promised that the Chinese people of Hong Kong would be free to practice their religious rites, ceremonies, and social customs, and to enjoy lawful private property and interests; Chinese laws would be used in matters concerning the Chinese.
As a result, governance in Hong Kong, with its separate rule of Chinese and foreigners, was a form of “two systems.” Chinese people continued to attend Chinese private schools (sishu). In the event of disputes, they always chose not to resort to the court system of the colonial government, but go to the Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan, kill a cock, burn a piece of yellow paper, take an oath or perform an investigation, the legal status of which was recognized by the government.
The Home Affairs Bureau, now responsible for dealing with various social groups, evolves from the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in the colonial era. It was responsible for communicating with the local Chinese and keeping track of their opinions. After establishing the Tung Wah Hospital, a charity run by local Chinese elites, the colonial government once intended to have it develop into a small government for the Chinese. Through this, you can imagine that “one city, two systems” was a fundamental policy of the Hong Kong government.
Hong Kong’s history of “two systems” is best illustrated by the implementation of “The Great Qing Legal Code,” which was still in force in 1970, more than one century after the opening of Hong Kong. That year, the Legislative Council implemented the Marriage Reform Ordinance to abolish concubinage and replace it with monogamy. However, children and descendants of concubines are still eligible to inherit by the Qing Code. After 1997, court cases about land issues in the New Territories sometimes still refer to the Code.
From the above, it is clear that the two systems, there since 1841, were genuine and unconditional, free from political strictures, remarkably contrasting the communist version of “one country, two systems” today. The implementation of the National Security Law in 2020 put an end to the city’s history of “two systems,” with officials adopting mainland jargon and manners of political conduct at their own initiative.
