By Jay Scott Kanes
(Third in a Series)

HONG KONG – The severe social injustice that hampers China and most of its people, festering like an infected wound, takes many forms.

Across every province, most people lead their lives without the benefit of basic human rights, like freedom of speech, especially on “sensitive” issues, without an even-handed legal system and without a voice in politics. That’s the message from Bao Pu, a 43-year-old dissident, human-rights activist and publisher living in Hong Kong.

In 2009, the Beijing-born Bao Pu translated and co-edited a popular book, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang. In it, the author, a former national leader who spent his final 16 years under house arrest in Beijing, calls for political reforms. Although popular in Hong Kong and overseas, the book isn’t sold on the Chinese mainland.

Few groups in China suffer more than the Falun Gong, practitioners of tranquil exercises and meditation who dared to protest against government criticism, only to be blacklisted as an “evil cult”. For more than a decade since, the Chinese authorities have subjected anyone active in Falun Gong to imprisonment and torture. Many of the victims died. Yet in other nations, Falun Gong activities are peaceful, even welcomed.

“Obviously, this issue is about freedoms, especially freedoms of religion, expression and assembly,” said Bao Pu. “It’s as simple as that.”

Did the Falun Gong deserve Beijing’s wrath? “I don’t believe the government built a convincing case of an ‘evil cult’,” said Bao Pu. “Many people who practiced Falun Gong were middle-aged women retired and living at home. I don’t see them as an evil cult.”

Even in Hong Kong, a special administrative region with greater freedoms than elsewhere in China, the burden of answering to Beijing takes a heavy toll. National leaders place unreasonable restrictions on the democratic reforms long promised here.

“Hong Kong people should worry about erosion of their freedoms too,” said Bao Pu. “Many of the Hong Kong elites, by doing business in China and focusing on their own interests, signal their willingness to sell out Hong Kong. When it comes to freedom of expression, the same elites control newspapers and other media.

“Even in Hong Kong, people have all kinds of firm ideas about what they should say or not say. When we published Prisoner of the State, many people asked me, ‘Are you afraid?’ I really wasn’t concerned whether or not anyone would like the book. I focused on if it was worthy to publish, which it was, and if it was legal to publish. Of course, it was legal. So I refused to take a fearful line of thinking.

“But unfortunately, almost everybody I talk to in Hong Kong has certain concerns about what’s being published and if it should be or not. A small group of people always opposes the Beijing view, which is a reaction to what’s forbidden. So it’s easy to see the influence of Beijing’s power on Hong Kong’s freedoms. It’s all too apparent.”

Will Hong Kong people ever be able to choose their own chief executive and government? Or is that an impossible dream?

“Really, it depends on the approach that Hong Kong people take in their struggle, how clever they are and how successful their strategies are,” Bao Pu said. “So far, I don’t see bright prospects.”

Previously Published:

Beijing’s Supreme ‘Secret’ Revealed

Courage in Dissent: Truth, Freedoms Matter

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