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| At Hong Kong New Year Fair, Defiance Gives Way to Resignation | At Hong Kong New Year Fair, Defiance Gives Way to Resignation |
| (about 13 hours later) | |
| HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year fairs draw thousands of visitors who stroll past stalls of potted narcissus, snack on fish balls and snap up the latest plush toys. In recent years, the largest of the fairs, at Victoria Park, has also become a prime site for political expression. | HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year fairs draw thousands of visitors who stroll past stalls of potted narcissus, snack on fish balls and snap up the latest plush toys. In recent years, the largest of the fairs, at Victoria Park, has also become a prime site for political expression. |
| Two years ago, after street protests failed to achieve greater public participation in the selection of the leader of Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, some holiday stalls offered clothing and other items carrying pointed messages of resistance. This year — before the March election of the leader in which the outcome will, as usual, be decided by pro-Beijing loyalists voting on a short list of vetted candidates — defiance appears to have given way to indignant resignation. | |
| “I feel so helpless that as a Hong Konger, as a citizen, I don’t even have a vote,” said Priscilla Pang, a 22-year-old student, frowning at a wheel of fortune featuring the faces of several potential candidates for the leader, or chief executive. Given a choice, she would pick none of them, she said. “We’re like chickens having food forced down their throats. There’s no use fighting.” | “I feel so helpless that as a Hong Konger, as a citizen, I don’t even have a vote,” said Priscilla Pang, a 22-year-old student, frowning at a wheel of fortune featuring the faces of several potential candidates for the leader, or chief executive. Given a choice, she would pick none of them, she said. “We’re like chickens having food forced down their throats. There’s no use fighting.” |
| The wheel of fortune was set up by the pro-democracy Civic Party to highlight the closed nature of the election, said Alvin Yeung, the party leader and a legislator. | The wheel of fortune was set up by the pro-democracy Civic Party to highlight the closed nature of the election, said Alvin Yeung, the party leader and a legislator. |
| “Most of the Hong Kong people who came and played the wheel, they don’t have the right to vote,” Mr. Yeung said. “We allow people to take their turn and see who will be the one, but at the end of the day our message is, None of them are your real choice because this election is not a genuine election.” | “Most of the Hong Kong people who came and played the wheel, they don’t have the right to vote,” Mr. Yeung said. “We allow people to take their turn and see who will be the one, but at the end of the day our message is, None of them are your real choice because this election is not a genuine election.” |
| Nearby, a stall run by the Democratic Party was selling a modified version of Fish, Prawn, Crab, a Chinese game of chance. It, too, featured the expected candidates, with the winners determined by a roll of the dice. The point was that whichever candidate won, it was from the same restricted pool. | |
| “Most people here will not be able to participate whatsoever,” said Helena Wong, a member of the Democratic Party, as she finished a “fai chun’’ — good wishes written in Chinese calligraphy on red paper — for display. “They can at most have fun playing the game.” | |
| The declared candidates include three former government officials and a retired judge. All except the former judge, who is given little chance of winning, have embraced the strict framework the Chinese government imposed in 2014 for changes to Hong Kong’s election rules. It allowed the chief executive to be elected, for the first time, by a popular vote. But the list of candidates would still be chosen by a pro-Beijing committee. It was that decision that led to the months of protests in Hong Kong, later known as the Umbrella Movement, calling for “genuine” universal suffrage. | The declared candidates include three former government officials and a retired judge. All except the former judge, who is given little chance of winning, have embraced the strict framework the Chinese government imposed in 2014 for changes to Hong Kong’s election rules. It allowed the chief executive to be elected, for the first time, by a popular vote. But the list of candidates would still be chosen by a pro-Beijing committee. It was that decision that led to the months of protests in Hong Kong, later known as the Umbrella Movement, calling for “genuine” universal suffrage. |
| Some leaders of the 2014 protests went on to win seats on the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s 70-member legislature, but a sense of gloom was evident along the political aisle at the weeklong fair, where pro-democracy parties were calling for donations to fight a government-initiated legal challenge to their members’ qualifications to take office. | Some leaders of the 2014 protests went on to win seats on the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s 70-member legislature, but a sense of gloom was evident along the political aisle at the weeklong fair, where pro-democracy parties were calling for donations to fight a government-initiated legal challenge to their members’ qualifications to take office. |
| “Nathan Law could be stripped of his Legislative Council membership,” Joshua Wong, a leader of the 2014 protests who co-founded the Demosisto party with Mr. Law, shouted through a megaphone. “If — touch wood — he loses the case, he would go bankrupt.” | “Nathan Law could be stripped of his Legislative Council membership,” Joshua Wong, a leader of the 2014 protests who co-founded the Demosisto party with Mr. Law, shouted through a megaphone. “If — touch wood — he loses the case, he would go bankrupt.” |
| Mr. Law, who at 23 is the youngest person ever to have been elected to the Legislative Council, is among four pro-democracy legislators the government is trying to unseat over what it said were invalid oaths of office. The move has stirred worries of a wider crackdown on opposition politicians, after the government won a similar, but separate, case that prevented two politicians who favor independence for Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, from taking seats in the Legislative Council. | Mr. Law, who at 23 is the youngest person ever to have been elected to the Legislative Council, is among four pro-democracy legislators the government is trying to unseat over what it said were invalid oaths of office. The move has stirred worries of a wider crackdown on opposition politicians, after the government won a similar, but separate, case that prevented two politicians who favor independence for Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, from taking seats in the Legislative Council. |
| In another blow to those two politicians, Sixtus Leung, known as Baggio, and Yau Wai-ching, the Hong Kong government rescinded a permit for their party, Youngspiration, to set up a stall at Victoria Park less than a week before the opening of the fair. In a first, it cited the party’s pro-independence advocacy, saying visitors might “support or oppose the messages” of the party and thus “endanger public order and safety.” Another pro-independence party, the Hong Kong National Party, was also barred from the fair. | In another blow to those two politicians, Sixtus Leung, known as Baggio, and Yau Wai-ching, the Hong Kong government rescinded a permit for their party, Youngspiration, to set up a stall at Victoria Park less than a week before the opening of the fair. In a first, it cited the party’s pro-independence advocacy, saying visitors might “support or oppose the messages” of the party and thus “endanger public order and safety.” Another pro-independence party, the Hong Kong National Party, was also barred from the fair. |
| During New Year celebrations last year, in the Hong Kong district of Mong Kok, violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters who said they wanted to defend the New Year tradition of food hawkers’ selling fish balls and other street snacks. Although the hawkers were unlicensed, they were supported by Hong Kong residents who saw them as emblematic of local culture, which they feel is under threat. Many among the dozens of people arrested were connected to a pro-independence activist group. | |
| Mr. Wong, the co-founder of Demosisto, said on Thursday that he was concerned that the authorities might broaden their crackdown on avowed separatists to those who seek greater democracy, with legal challenges and through other means. | Mr. Wong, the co-founder of Demosisto, said on Thursday that he was concerned that the authorities might broaden their crackdown on avowed separatists to those who seek greater democracy, with legal challenges and through other means. |
| “It set a very bad precedent,” he said in an interview, referring to the move to bar pro-independence parties from setting up shop at the fair, adding that he does not support independence for Hong Kong. “Today they banned pro-independence parties, tomorrow they could ban those supporting self-determination, and one day they can ban anyone who calls for universal suffrage and democracy.” | “It set a very bad precedent,” he said in an interview, referring to the move to bar pro-independence parties from setting up shop at the fair, adding that he does not support independence for Hong Kong. “Today they banned pro-independence parties, tomorrow they could ban those supporting self-determination, and one day they can ban anyone who calls for universal suffrage and democracy.” |
| Despite the Hong Kong government’s apparent anxiety about the messages of opposing parties’ provoking violence, political adversaries have long coexisted peacefully at the Lunar New Year fair in Victoria Park. | |
| This year, the stall of the staunchly pro-Beijing New People’s Party, featuring chicken-themed plush toys — the year that begins Friday night is the Year of the Rooster — stood alongside those of pro-democracy parties. | |
| A makeshift museum at the fair featured photos of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, run by a group that condemns the Chinese Communist Party’s military crackdown and calls for an end to one-party rule. | A makeshift museum at the fair featured photos of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, run by a group that condemns the Chinese Communist Party’s military crackdown and calls for an end to one-party rule. |
| From inside the museum, one could hear the music from a nearby miniconcert celebrating the approaching 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the Chinese “motherland.” | From inside the museum, one could hear the music from a nearby miniconcert celebrating the approaching 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the Chinese “motherland.” |