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INTRODUCTION
Hong Kong’s “One Country, Two Systems” framework, once lauded for fostering a financial hub and set to expire in 2047, is now widely considered defunct. The imposition of the National Security Law on 30 June 2020 marked an end to the territory’s legal autonomy and signaled Beijing’s direct assertion of political control amid intensifying Sino-American rivalries (Lee 2020b). As Michael C. Davis (2020) observes, “[t]he intrusion of the new national security law is not so much a new behavior as it is a progression of a long pattern of intervention and distrust that dates back to before the handover.” The draconian measures have fundamentally turned the territory’s “promised liberal constitution” into a repressive “national security constitution” (Davis 2020, 8). The Basic Law’s original commitment to a liberal, open society has been dismantled. Perspectives on these measures vary: some see them as necessary responses to perceived existential threats, while others view them as authoritarian tactics to restructure a once-vibrant civil society (Lee 2020c).
BIONOTE
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is a Professor of History at Pace University in New York City, USA. His research focuses on faith and politics in modern China. His most recent publications include From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes (with Jeff Kyong-McClain, published by Routledge in 2024), RESIST! Democracy and Youth Activism in Myanmar, Hong Kong, and Singapore (with Amy Freedman, published by Pace University Press in 2024), Empire Competition: Southeast Asia as a Site of Imperial Contestation (with Amy Freedman, published by Pace University Press in 2021), and The Church as Safe Haven: Christian Governance in Modern China (with Lars Peter Laamann, by Brill in 2019).
ARTICLE INFORMATION
Type of Manuscript: Essay
Volume, Issue, Year: Volume 59, Issue 1, Year 2023
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