Apple Daily demise ends an era

Hauling a senior Hong Kong newspaper editor from a night flight to London and throwing him into jail symbolises all that is reprehensible about the Chinese Communist Party’s unrelenting repression as it commemorates the 100th anniversary of its foundation. Fung Wai-kong, 57, was an editorial writer at the popular pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, which was forced to close last week after its founder, Jimmy Lai, and other senior executives were imprisoned. Mr Fung, like almost 1000 of the shuttered newspaper’s desperate employees, was seeking a new life away from the oppression imposed on Hong Kong by China. But with the centenary of the CCP’s founding and the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong’s “glorious return to the motherland” being marked this week, Chinese authorities in Hong Kong had other ideas.

Mr Fung is yet another member of Hong Kong’s once vibrant journalistic community who has been incarcerated on trumped-up charges of “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”. He could be imprisoned for life under Beijing’s draconian national security law, imposed a year ago.

Beijing’s Global Times propaganda mouthpiece would have the world believe Hong Kong is excited because “for the first time it is able to celebrate the birthday of the CCP on such an open and large scale”. According to the newspaper, Hong Kong’s citizens are keenly sprouting the snappy slogan, “Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the CCP, and the 24th Anniversary of Hong Kong’s Return to the Motherland”. The evidence suggests otherwise in the former British colony handed over to Beijing in 1997 on a firm promise of continuing autonomy in terms of the “One country, Two systems” agreement and the retention of democratic freedoms, including press freedom, until 2047.

Mr Fung is far from alone in seeking to flee. Thousands have already gone, mainly to the UK and the US, but also to Australia. Many have also shown their disdain for Beijing by making their way to the sanctuary of Taiwan’s well-run democratic freedoms, rule of law and prosperity, just as President Xi Jinping and the CCP seek to make good on their promise to take over Taiwan.

As Will Glasgow has reported, hundreds of Apple Daily staff members fear they could be next following Mr Fung’s arrest. Beijing is going after the remnants of dissent in the city and Hong Kong’s security bureau, which does Beijing’s dark work, has asked Apple Daily’s parent company for a full list of former staff. It is no surprise Beijing’s representatives are worried. More persuasive than the Global Times’ self-serving claptrap about China’s popularity in Hong Kong is the reality that the print run for the final edition of Apple Daily, known as Hong Kong’s “Beacon of Democracy”, was one million copies. With polls showing undiminished support for the democracy movement, despite Beijing’s unrelenting crackdown, Apple Daily’s popularity shows the problems the CCP faces in trying to impose its rule on the city.

Hong Kong’s lily-livered Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and pro-China legislator Regina Ip, have joined Mr Xi in Beijing for the centenary celebrations. “China was poverty-stricken and very weak in 1921,” Ms Ip, leader of Hong Kong’s People’s Party, said. “They’ve turned around the country — there’s a lot to be proud of despite Western perceptions of China as authoritarian.”

Hong Kong’s emasculation, and the treatment of people such as Mr Fung, tell a different story. Having reneged on its 1997 pledge to uphold the autonomy and democratic freedoms of one of the world’s most vibrant and exciting cities, the CCP is now trying to choke the oxygen out of it. The communist regime’s destruction of Apple Daily was a pivotal moment in the history of Beijing’s imposition of authoritarian rule on Hong Kong. It is no surprise free tickets have had to be offered to attract an audience to the main event on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour marking the CCP centenary and the 24th anniversary of Britain’s handover.