“For the past five months (since June 2019), the city of Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, has been the scene of large-scale anti-government protests. Originally, these protests were against an extradition bill tabled in the Legislative Council, and which would have allowed for the extradition of suspects, not only from Hong Kong to Taiwan, but also to the People’s Republic of China. While the extradition bill was formally withdrawn by the government in September 2019, the protests show no sign of abating, as protestors demand that all five their demands be met. (The fifth demand, the withdrawal of the extradition bill has been met. What remains is for (1) the protests not to be characterised as a “riot”, (2) arrested protestors to receive amnesty, (3) an independent inquiry be established into alleged police brutality, and (4) the implementation of complete universal suffrage.)
To better understand the complex geo-political realities of the city often described as a place where “East meets West”, see the book chapter “A legal-historical chronical of Rule-of-Law narratives in Hong Kong” by Dr. Andra le Roux-Kemp, published in Global Legal History A comparative Perspective (2018) Tate, de Lima Lopes & Botero-Bernal (eds.) In this Chapter, it is shown how law, and specifically the concept “Rule of Law” is used by HongKongers as a constitutive and confrontational rhetoric, to establish and reaffirm a collective identity, and also as a divisive measure to separate and distinguish Hong Kong from the People’s Republic of China.
University of Lincoln, College of Social Science Research
Andra Le Roux-Kemp, University of Lincoln, Lincoln Law School