Repression in Hong Kong is a work in progress, and a revealing window on the party’s worldview
香港的镇压是一项正在进行的工作，也是了解共产党世界观的一扇窗

Aug 24th 20232023 年 8 月 24 日 经济学人

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“Hong kong is becoming less and less relevant,” says a Western diplomat in the city. On the face of it, that is an odd claim. Lots of foreign governments take Hong Kong seriously, noting each step of the financial centre’s journey towards autocracy.

“香港的重要性正变得越来越小，”驻香港的一位西方外交官表示。从表面上看，这是一个奇怪的说法。许多外国政府都认真对待香港，注意到这个金融中心走向独裁之路的每一步。

Only last month the governments of America, Australia and Britain formally protested when the authorities in Hong Kong announced bounties of HK$1m ($128,000) on eight democracy activists living as exiles in their respective countries. The territory’s chief executive, John Lee, a former police officer, pledged that the eight will be “pursued for life” and “spend their days in fear”. This was not mere bluster. In recent times police have swooped on Hong Kong-based family members of those exiles, questioning them for hours about contacts with their relatives.

就在上个月，美国、澳大利亚和英国政府正式提出抗议，当时香港当局宣布向在各自国家流亡的八名民主活动人士悬赏 100 万港元（合 128,000 美元）。该地区行政长官、前警官约翰·李 (John Lee) 承诺，这八人将“终身被追捕”，并“在恐惧中度过每一天”。这不仅仅是咆哮。最近，警方突然袭击了这些流亡者在香港的家人，对他们询问了几个小时，询问他们与亲属的联系情况。

The European Union’s latest annual report on Hong Kong, published on August 18th, is both grim and thorough. It describes the arrests of hundreds of opposition politicians, journalists and democracy activists, among them a retired Roman Catholic cardinal in his 90s, under a national-security law imposed on the city by the central government in Beijing. The report catalogues new pressures and controls on schools and universities, environmental groups, trade unions and professional associations. More broadly, diplomats posted to Hong Kong by dozens of countries have spent long hours observing national-security trials, held without juries before panels of hand-picked judges. Dutifully, foreign envoys write reports on stage-managed “elections”. Some of those contests involve a single, pre-screened candidate—the only one to meet the requirement, imposed from Beijing after anti-government protests in 2019, that “patriots administer Hong Kong”.

欧盟8月18日发布的最新香港年度报告既严峻又彻底。报告描述了根据北京中央政府对香港实施的国家安全法，数百名反对派政客、记者和民主活动人士被捕，其中包括一位 90 多岁的退休罗马天主教红衣主教。该报告列出了学校和大学、环保组织、工会和专业协会面临的新压力和控制。更广泛地说，数十个国家派驻香港的外交官花了很长时间观察国家安全审判，这些审判在没有陪审团的情况下由精心挑选的法官组成。外国特使尽职尽责地撰写关于舞台管理的“选举”的报告。其中一些竞选涉及一名预先筛选的候选人，这是唯一符合北京在 2019 年反政府抗议活动后提出的“爱国者治港”要求的候选人。

For all those signs of external scrutiny, there are signs of policymakers in foreign capitals losing interest, or at least hope. The Western diplomat laments that, back home, the city’s smothering is considered a done deal. “When I talk to colleagues at headquarters, they already consider Hong Kong to be part of China.”

尽管有这些外部审查的迹象，但有迹象表明外国资本的政策制定者失去了兴趣，或者至少失去了希望。这位西方外交官感叹说，在国内，这座城市的窒息被认为是板上钉钉的事情。 “当我与总部的同事交谈时，他们已经认为香港是中国的一部分。”

Actually, such fatalism is a mistake, for both principled and practical reasons. Start with the former. Democratic governments cannot change the Communist Party. But they can make China’s rulers pay a price when they break their word. To shrug and turn away from China’s actions in Hong Kong would break faith with the territory’s 7.5m people, who were promised a high degree of autonomy and the preservation of many fundamental freedoms for 50 years after British colonial rule ended in 1997, under China’s formulation of “one country, two systems”.

事实上，无论是从原则上还是从实践上来说，这种宿命论都是错误的。从前者开始。民主政府无法改变共产党。但他们可以让中国统治者在食言时付出代价。对中国在香港的行动不屑一顾并置之不理，将破坏对香港 750 万人民的信心。根据中国的制定，香港在 1997 年英国殖民统治结束后的 50 年内，向香港人民承诺高度自治并保留许多基本自由。 “一个国家，两种制度”。

Then there is the impact on the stand-off over Taiwan, the democratic, self-ruled island that China calls its own. China’s preferred Taiwan scenario involves the island’s peaceful submission, in return for limited autonomy under a version of “one country, two systems”. If foreign governments allow China to trample commitments to Hong Kong with impunity, they risk encouraging rulers in Beijing to imagine they can do the same to Taiwan. It is hard to see how that could be a consensual, bloodless process. Understandably, China’s crushing of freedoms in Hong Kong has left the people of Taiwan warier than ever of a mainland takeover.

此外，还有对台湾问题的对峙的影响，台湾是一个民主、自治的岛屿，中国称其为自己的岛屿。中国更喜欢的台湾方案是该岛和平屈服，以换取“一个国家，两种制度”下的有限自治。如果外国政府允许中国践踏对香港的承诺而不受惩罚，他们就有可能鼓励北京统治者想象他们可以对台湾做同样的事情。很难看出这怎么可能是一个双方同意、不流血的过程。可以理解的是，中国对香港自由的压制让台湾人民对大陆的接管比以往任何时候都更加警惕。

There is a practical reason to keep tracking repression in Hong Kong, too. A good way to understand any edifice is to watch it being built. In the same way, the stifling of Hong Kong’s pluralism is a work in progress, and as such is unusually revealing about the ambitions and terrors that drive China’s secretive rulers, and about the controls they think are needed in an orderly society.

继续追踪香港的镇压也是有实际原因的。了解任何建筑物的一个好方法是观看它的建造过程。同样，对香港多元化的压制是一项正在进行的工作，因此异常地揭示了驱动中国秘密统治者的野心和恐惧，以及他们认为有序社会所需的控制。

For now, the territory enjoys freedoms unknown in mainland China. The internet is not sealed behind China’s “great firewall”. One of the biggest threats to debate is arguably self-censorship, induced by fear and by deliberately vague calls by Hong Kong’s officials to eradicate “soft resistance”—their sinister description of dissent that does not explicitly challenge the law.

目前，香港享有中国大陆所没有的自由。互联网并没有被封锁在中国的“防火墙”后面。辩论的最大威胁之一可以说是自我审查，这是由恐惧和香港官员故意含糊地呼吁消除“软抵抗”（他们对没有明确挑战法律的异议的险恶描述）引发的。

The trends are ominous, though. When Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, visited Hong Kong last year he called on officials to heed central authorities in Beijing, to guard against foreign interference and to tackle what he called locals’ primary concerns, namely larger homes, more economic opportunities, better schools and quality care for the elderly. Hong Kong’s leaders have made progress on Mr Xi’s first two priorities, at least.

然而，趋势是不祥的。中国最高领导人习近平去年访问香港时，呼吁官员听从北京中央当局的意见，防范外国干涉，并解决他所说的当地人的首要关切，即更大的住房、更多的经济机会、更好的学校以及为老年人提供优质的护理。香港领导人至少在习近平提出的前两项优先事项上取得了进展。

Their new political model has no time for the notion of loyal opposition. Officials praise the “efficiency” of the territory’s Legislative Council since dissenting politicians were thrown out. School curriculums have shed classes that encourage critical thinking and added lessons about national security. The new model questions the legitimacy of even constructive criticism. When campaigners raise doubts about planned transport or housing schemes, state-backed news outlets denounce them for inciting “citizens’ negative emotions against the government”.

他们的新政治模式没有时间考虑忠诚反对派的概念。自从持不同政见的政客被赶下台后，官员们赞扬香港立法会的“效率”。学校课程取消了鼓励批判性思维的课程，并增加了有关国家安全的课程。新模式甚至质疑建设性批评的合法性。当活动人士对计划中的交通或住房计划提出质疑时，国家支持的新闻媒体就会谴责他们煽动“公民对政府的负面情绪”。

A world city no more世界城市不再

Hong Kong is being domesticated, in every sense of the word. To bring the city to heel, its leaders want to weaken the West’s perceived influence. One of the exiles with a bounty on his head calls extraterritorial harassment a warning to Hong Kongers. “It is not as if they are going to extradite us,” he says. “The audience is domestic.” China is working to bind Hong Kong economically to nearby mainland cities. Reportedly, lucrative opportunities are increasingly steered to mainland firms in Hong Kong, or to “patriotic” locals. There is talk of admitting more mainland immigrants. Diplomats draw parallels with settler-colonialism practised elsewhere in China’s restive periphery, from Tibet to Xinjiang.

从任何意义上来说，香港都在被驯化。为了让这座城市就范，其领导人希望削弱西方的影响力。一名悬赏追缴的流亡者称，域外骚扰是对香港人的警告。 “他们并不打算引渡我们，”他说。 “观众是国内的。”中国正在努力将香港与附近的内地城市在经济上联系起来。据报道，利润丰厚的机会越来越多地流向香港的内地公司或“爱国”的当地人。有传言要接纳更多大陆移民。外交官们将其与中国周边地区（从西藏到新疆）的定居者殖民主义相提并论。

Once, foreign governments and businesses predicted that Hong Kong’s value as a global city would protect it from heavy-handed Chinese rule. Instead, party bosses prize control over openness: that is the ongoing lesson of Hong Kong. As a window on the party’s bleak worldview, the city’s fate is all too relevant. ■

外国政府和企业曾经预测，香港作为国际城市的价值将使其免受中国的高压统治。相反，党的领导人重视对开放性的控制：这是香港持续不断的教训。作为了解共产党悲观世界观的窗口，这座城市的命运至关重要。 ■