January 4, 2022
Hong Kong's "Patriots Only" Election Will Further Erode Political and Civil Liberties
A record-low number of voters cast their ballots at the polls Sunday in an election that had essentially pre-determined results. With just a little over a 30% voter turnout, the will of the people of Hong Kong was made known by their absence.
Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Olivia Enos and Heritage Visiting Fellow Michael Cunningham write <[link removed]> that the low turnout is a repudiation of the dramatic transformation Beijing has been carrying out against the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong. In 2020, Beijing instituted the National Security Law. In 2021, it introduced election reforms that reduced the number of directly elected members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The election is a reminder of just how far Hong Kong has fallen from its once bright democratic future.
Two years ago, when Hongkongers last went to the polls, the story was the exact opposite. The election to choose district councilors saw a record high turnout of over 70% and handed the pro-democracy camp majorities in all but one of the city’s 18 districts. This time, there was not even a pro-democracy ticket. Those in that camp who had not been imprisoned or disqualified resigned in protest late last year and many fled overseas. Multiple political organizations have disbanded, fearing prosecution under the National Security Law, and those that remain refused to lend legitimacy to a rigged election by fielding candidates.
The Chinese regime and its puppets in Hong Kong have put substantial propaganda effort toward presenting Sunday’s election and its results as legitimate. But the exhaustive efforts they made to rig the election reveal their utter disdain for the institutions of democracy.
Hongkongers were dismayed by electoral reforms instituted by the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. The new regulations required all candidates be approved by a committee staffed by Beijing loyalists. It also changed the structure of the Legislative Council to make it even less democratic. The new rules increased the number of seats from 70 to 90 and reduced the number of directly elected seats from 35 to 20. This means that less than one-fourth of legislators could be selected by the city’s residents. In the process, they eliminated the five seats appointed by the democratically elected district councils and added 40 seats to be chosen directly by the same safely pro-Beijing Election Committee that selects the city’s chief executive.
After going to great lengths to ensure Sunday’s election will reflect Beijing’s interest rather than that of the people of Hong Kong, the government is now trying to convince the world that the election is legitimate. The facts state otherwise.
Hong Kong has never enjoyed full democracy. But before the push by Beijing over the last few years to reign in Hong Kong’s liberal institutions, it was making progress and held out hope for the universal suffrage China once promised. Sunday’s so-called patriots only election is a further retreat from that liberal democratic future. The 2022 election for chief executive is designed to reflect even less the will of Hong Kong’s people. The rigged Legislative Council election handed the only option on the ticket—candidates representing Beijing’s interests—a victory. Most Hongkongers did not endorse the election.
The desire for good governance is the lifeblood running through the veins of the Hong Kong people, and this election demonstrated that even when candidates are imposed on a citizenry by force, that force is unable to change people’s minds about the legitimacy of their authority.
Related: Click here <[link removed]> to view Heritage's 2021 China Transparency Report.
Looking to the Stars in 2022
The heavens are a little more crowded with the start of 2022. Heritage Senior Research Fellow Dean Cheng writes <[link removed]> that there are more players and more systems in orbit … and more threats.
The People’s Republic of China has significantly expanded its role in space. This week, Chinese astronauts at the Tiangong space station engaged in a six-hour spacewalk, the longest ever by Chinese astronauts. The tempo of Chinese-crewed spaceflight activities has accelerated sharply since Beijing deployed its space station, with manned space flights increasing from one every two to three years to one every six months.
Meanwhile, three spacecraft entered Martian orbit this year. While the American and Chinese missions garnered the most attention, the first spacecraft to enter orbit was from the United Arab Emirates.
That the “Hope” mission was launched atop a Japanese rocket underscores that there are more and more new players in the space domain. Many of these new players will not only be using space (such as by purchasing a satellite), but will be manufacturing space systems, planning missions, and providing various space services.
Nor will all these players necessarily be nation-states. The American company SpaceX will have launched as many or more satellites in 2021 as most national space agencies. Its 31 launches represent a significant share of the year’s roughly 170 launches globally undertaken in 2021 and outpace Russian and European activities. SpaceX continues to mark additional new milestones. Starlink, its satellite-based internet access network, now has a constellation of 1,700 satellites. This would not be possible if it had not succeeded in massively lowering launch costs. The Falcon-9 that launched a Dragon resupply capsule for the International Space Station marked the 100th successful landing of a SpaceX first stage. The Falcon-9 delivers what the Space Shuttle had only promised—a truly reusable spacecraft, and the tremendous savings that come with it.
The proliferation of space-based internet in turn reflects the growing dependence of terrestrial business on a variety of space capabilities. International communications have long employed satellites to bridge oceans and continental expanses.
But it is in the realm of “position, navigation and timing” satellites that commerce has become truly dependent on space. Such positioning, navigation, and timing satellites, most famously the American GPS satellite navigation network, allow consumers to track their packages from Santa’s workshop to their final destinations. Those same satellites play an essential role in keeping cellphone towers synchronized and pumping stations timed to sustain the flow of oil and natural gas. Houses are kept warm, and factories can keep running due in no small part to the now ubiquitous space-based timing signal.
China is now openly competing with the United States in this domain, as the Chinese BeiDou system is incorporated into Belt and Road Initiative projects around the world.
All is not peaceful in the heavens, however.
Russia this year tested an anti-satellite weapon that generated a massive debris field. Already shards from that test have forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take shelter. Ironically, several of those astronauts are Russian, emphasizing the reality that bad actors may not care about the consequences of their actions, even if it puts their own people at risk.
Meanwhile, China tested a hypersonic weapon with alarming characteristics. Unlike typical intercontinental ballistic missile warheads, the Chinese hypersonic vehicle apparently went into orbit before launching a smaller vehicle and then striking a target on Earth. The decision to place the system into orbit means that, in the future, every Chinese satellite will have to be considered a potential hypersonic weapon carrier—with dire consequences for crisis stability.
While the Russian Anti-Satellite test was irresponsible, Moscow and Washington for decades understood that crisis stability meant that there were limits to each side’s actions. Better to forego certain capabilities that might, in a crisis, create escalatory updrafts that could send a crisis spinning out of control. The Chinese appear to have few such qualms.
These developments are only highlights in the growing relevance of space to terrestrial activities and politics. The final frontier will be an ever-greater consideration in the coming years and decades.
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