From 闯 Chuǎng
For several months starting late January, the Covid-19 Pandemic seemed to have demobilized the mass movement in Hong Kong, in any case pushing it off the radar of global news. Over the past few weeks, however, the Special Autonomous Region’s unresolved conflict has again begun to heat up, with fifteen prominent anti-Beijing (“pan-democracy”) politicians being arrested on April 18 for “organising and participating in unlawful assemblies,” and the revival of city-wide protests, including one on May 10 ending in over 200 arrests, the firing of a pepper ball round in a shopping center, and the police strangling of a journalist caught up in the melee (one among multiple recent police assaults on journalists). On May 12, “Ms. X,” the teenager who had accused Hong Kong police of gang-raping her in detention after a round-up of protestors last September, learned that the state had now issued a warrant for her arrest on the charge “making a false statement” and “absconding” to Taiwan, and that the Department of Justice had dropped her case against the police. Meanwhile in the Legislative Council, a number of controversial measures have been pursued by pro-Beijing officials, including a 25 percent increase to the police budget, passed on May 14, for the force to add 2,500 officers and purchase more weapons. The next day saw the first in what is expected to become a flood of trials for participants in last year’s protests, with 21-year-old lifeguard Sin Ka-ho being sentenced to four years in prison for “rioting.” Most importantly, Beijing’s “Two Sessions” are currently pushing to impose national security legislation that, opponents argue, would effectively incorporate Hong Kong into China’s political structure, prematurely ending the era of “one country, two systems.”