Anywhere between 2,40,000 and 10,00,000 people took to the streets in Hong Kong, and clashed with police, protesting a proposed law that will allow those facing criminal charges in the former British colony to be extradited to mainland China. The scale of the protests, the largest since Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony in 1997, is staggering.
The hope for retaining the residues of autonomy it carries vis a vis China is more subdued. For, in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, the message from the brutal way in which that movement was crushed remains very much alive.
With China’s superpower status and its technological advancement, the mechanisms of control at the disposal of the state have only become deeper. Since its accession to China, a condition of which was that Hong Kong would maintain its public institutions, including courts, the contradiction of a relatively free and prosperous Hong Kong in the Party-controlled country has remained.
The current protests are heartening since they show denizens will fight to protect their autonomy. But at Tiananmen Square, the writing is still on the wall.
