(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong’s foreign journalists’ club found itself at the center of the latest battle over rights in the former British colony, as pro-China groups threatened to keep a local activist from addressing the group.
Beijing loyalists urged supporters to gather outside the Foreign Correspondents’ Club to interrupt an event Tuesday featuring independence advocate Andy Chan. The 27-year-old activist was expected to address the government’s unprecedented effort to ban his National Party during a 12:30 p.m. speech titled, “Hong Kong Nationalism: A Politically Incorrect Guide to Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule.”
The club, whose 2,000 members include journalists from some of the world’s best-known news organizations, went ahead with the event despite calls by the city’s former top official to reconsider the group’s government lease. The dispute highlights how Beijing’s push to silence a small, but vocal independence movement could undermine the political freedoms guaranteed to Hong Kong before its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Freedom of speech and assembly are enshrined in the city’s charter.
Hong Kong police said they approved three applications to stage protests outside the FCC’s clubhouse in the central business district, but denied a fourth for lack of members. One group calling itself United in Protecting Hong Kong urged supporters to gather outside the colonial-era building on Lower Albert Road wearing shirts adorned with Chinese flags.
“We as people who love the country and love Hong Kong must come forward,” Jimmy Tso, the group’s convener, posted on Facebook. “Down with Hong Kong independence. Raze FCC to the ground.”
Chan’s speech comes a year after President Xi Jinping visited the city and warned that he would tolerate no challenges to Chinese authority. The FCC’s invitation drew an unusually blunt rebuke from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which urged the organization to cancel the speech.
The club refused, saying it welcomed speakers of all views. The club has hosted government officials, as well as its critics such as Joshua Wong, a leader of the pro-democracy “Occupy Central” protests in 2014.
“We invite a very broad range of speakers and panelists to address our members and to answer questions from them, on politics, business, the arts and many other topics,” the FCC said in an Aug. 6 statement. “Hosting such events does not mean that we either endorse or oppose the views of our speakers.”
Former Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying fanned tensions with an Aug. 4 open letter questioning whether the FCC would also host “criminals and terrorists.” Leung said the club’s premises had been leased for a “token rent,” and subsequently called for the space to be put out for an open bid.
While Leung’s successor, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, said that the club paid a “market rate” for its facilities, she called the decision to host Chan “regrettable.” Lam was scheduled to travel to Beijing on Tuesday for meetings about a Xi-backed project to better integrate Hong Kong’s economy with the mainland’s.
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Chan argues that the “one country, two systems” model that was supposed to ensure a “high degree of autonomy” for Hong Kong hasn’t worked given China’s growing influence over the city. He says he’s concerned that China wants curtail the freedoms credited with maintaining Hong Kong’s place as a global financial hub.
“It can’t protect our lives, it can’t give us freedom, it can’t give us dignity,” he said in an interview Friday. “So the only option left is independence.”
The move to ban the National Party has fed fears that authorities want to set a precedent for clamping down on other opposition groups. By exaggerating the party’s threat, the Chinese and Hong Kong governments may be laying the groundwork to revive a shelved national security law, said Chung Kim-wah, a political scientist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
“It seems they wanted to look for some loopholes in local legislation, and give it an interpretation that becomes a precedent,” Chung said. “We all know the discussion of independence in Hong Kong is confined to only a small percentage of the people.”
--With assistance from John Follain and Natalie Lung.
To contact the reporters on this story: David Tweed in Hong Kong at dtweed@bloomberg.net;Josie Wong in Hong Kong at jwong836@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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