Understanding Hong Kong’s Current Crackdown in Light of the Role of Christian Actors in the 2014 Pro-democracy Protests.

December 2020 has seen a wave of crackdowns on several figureheads of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. In just this month, Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam, three pro-democracy icons, have been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to participating in an unsanctioned protest. Jimmy Lai, a media tycoon, and pro-democracy supporter was charged with breaching the National Security Law. Three of these four dissidents are self-identified Christians, thus raising the question for some commentators of whether this counts as anti-Christian persecution. In order to understand these news stories, and the validity of the ensuing claims regarding the relation of religion, we must cast our eye back to the 2014 protests, popularly known as the Umbrella Movement. Attention reveals that, despite what simplistic narratives about Christian persecution suggest, Christian actors were present in both the pro-democracy and the pro-Beijing camps.

2014 witnessed a civil disobedience campaign for genuine universal suffrage, rather than nominees confined to a selection of puppet candidates vetted by the People’s Republic of China. A British colony from 1842-1997, HK has since been ‘under Chinese sovereignty,’ despite operating under a ‘different political apparatus and economic system’.[1]   HK’s Basic Law stipulates that, though an ‘inalienable part’ of China, HK can exercise a ‘high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial power’.[2]  Crucially, it promises the ‘gradual and orderly progress’ of the development of ‘universal suffrage’.[3]  Whilst it grants HK the right to elect its Chief Executive, ambiguities proceed from hazy caveats such as making them ‘accountable’ to and selected ‘upon nomination’ by, the PRC.[4]

Given recent analysis highlighting the link between the Christianity of activists, their involvement in the protests, and their current detention, it is helpful to contextualize this by examining the role of Christian actors in the 2014 protests. Though Christians comprise around 11.8% of the HK population,[5]the literature suggests that Christians were not only involved but were ‘heavily engaged in leading’ the movement.[6]Joshua Wong, leader of the student activist movement Scholarismled 1,200 students to occupy the government headquarters.[7] Wong told the media: ‘I believe everyone is born equal and they’re loved by Jesus. And I think that everyone, therefore, should get equal rights in the political system’.[8]Additionally, pro-democracy leader Benny Tai stated: ‘This is not a political activity. For me, this is a religious activity in which I am preaching therein’.[9]These are but a few examples of protesters viewing their political involvement in terms of faith.

However, to assume that Christian actors were only on the pro-democracy side is to overlook the reality that on both sides there existed participants ‘whose justifications for … political action had religious origins’.[10]The pro-establishment Evangelical Free Church of China and its Senior Pastor Ng openly opposed the protests. This church was in close proximity to the occupation sites, yet protesters were actively prevented from using their restrooms with church officials citing ‘private property’.[11]In April 2013, Ng distributed an article entitled: ‘How Should Christians Understand Civil Disobedience?’ in which he concluded that civil disobedience was ‘anti-social behavior’. He called upon congregants instead to ‘assist the government in achieving its designated goals’, pray for authorities, and respect the Chief Executive.[12]Moreover, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church the Most Reverend Kwong discouraged congregants from participating.  In his sermon, he used the template of Jesus’ actions as the model for how to act during political unrest: ‘Jesus was gentle and humbled when He was condemned before Pilate, silent like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Those who come out to protest have no peace within nor do they have the wisdom to think straight’.[13] Thus, despite what recent analysis suggests, Christian actors are present within pro-establishment circles.

Photo credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters, September 24t

Though this survey is brief, and by no means exhaustive, analysis of the current crackdown that links activists’ Christianity to their imprisonment is simply because it does not pay due attention to Christian actors in the pro-establishment camp. As such, the Umbrella Movement can be thought of as an instance of ‘grounded theologies’, whereby purportedly secular landscapes remain constituted by theological narratives’ on both sides.[14]It, therefore, is helpful to situate these current news stories and analysis, in the landscape of the 2014 protests that ultimately provoked them, and in which Christians were implicated on both sides.

References:

Albano, Jayson, and Maria Kuiper. ‘Divine To Divided: How Occupy Central Split Hong Kong’s Christian Leaders’. South China Morning Post. 24 September 2017, Hong Kong edition.

Caryl, Christian. ‘Hong Kong’s Religious Revolutionaries’. Foreign Policy, 10 April 2014.

Chan, Shun-hing. ‘The Protestant Community and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong’. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16, no. 3 (3 July 2015): 380–95.

Kung, Lap Yan. ‘The Umbrella Movement and Kairos: The Church’s Theological Encounter with a Political Movement’. In Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, edited by Justin K.H. Tse and Jonathan Y. Tan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016.

Ng, Nancy, and Andreas Fulda. ‘The Religious Dimension of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement’. Journal of Church and State 60, no. 3 (1 August 2018): 377–97.

Tse, Justin K.H. ‘Introduction: The Umbrella Movement and Liberation Theology’. In Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, edited by Jonathan Y. Tan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016.

Wu, Rose. ‘Radical Inclusion in the Umbrella Movement: Interstitial Integrity and the New Pentecostal Rebirth of Hong Kong’. In Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, edited by Jonathan Y. Tan and Justin K.H. Tse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016.

[1]Justin K.H. Tse, ‘Introduction: The Umbrella Movement and Liberation Theology’, in Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, ed. Jonathan Y. Tan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016), 25.

[2]Ibid, 27.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Christian Caryl, ‘Hong Kong’s Religious Revolutionaries’, Foreign Policy, 10 April 2014.

[6]Tse, 2.

[7]Nancy Ng and Andreas Fulda, ‘The Religious Dimension of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement’, Journal of Church and State 60, no. 3 (1 August 2018): 378.

[8]Rose Wu, ‘Radical Inclusion in the Umbrella Movement: Interstitial Integrity and the New Pentecostal Rebirth of Hong Kong’, in Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, ed. Jonathan Y. Tan and Justin K.H. Tse (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016), 93.

[9]Shun-hing Chan, ‘The Protestant Community and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16, no. 3 (3 July 2015): 385.

[10]Ng and Fulda, ‘The Religious Dimension of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement’, 378.

[11]Lap Yan Kung, ‘The Umbrella Movement and Kairos: The Church’s Theological Encounter with a Political Movement’, in Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, ed. Justin K.H. Tse and Jonathan Y. Tan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016), 114.

[12]Chan, ‘The Protestant Community and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong’, 385.

[13]Wu, 95.

[14]Tse, 113.