HONG KONG — In the nearly two decades since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, the Communist government in Beijing has tolerated all manner of activity in the city that it generally finds intolerable on the mainland: annual vigils for those killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, newspapers publishing scurrilous gossip about China’s leaders, huge demonstrations for free elections.
But by deciding to intervene in a local court case and essentially blocking two politicians from taking seats in Hong Kong’s legislature, China signaled more clearly than ever on Monday that there was a limit to its tolerance in this former British colony, which was promised a “high degree of autonomy” in an international treaty.
The two young activists who are testing that limit are advocates of independence for Hong Kong. While being sworn in, they made a statement of defiance against Chinese rule, using a crude obscenity and a term that many consider a slur against Chinese people.
In acting against them, the government of President Xi Jinping has asserted new authority to set policy in Hong Kong, opening what could be a more chaotic era here, in which elected officials are held to a vague standard of political loyalty and blacklisted if they fall short.
The Communist Party’s intervention in Hong Kong’s independent legal system could also damage the territory’s reputation as an international trade and finance hub in Asia. Many multinational corporations, banks and law firms are based here because of the dependability and fairness of the city’s courts.
Businesses also find Hong Kong appealing because of its political stability, but thousands of people demonstrated and clashed with the police on Sunday night in anticipation of Beijing’s action, which could incite more street protests.
China’s move came in the form of a rare interpretation of the Basic Law, the charter that governs Hong Kong and that was negotiated with Britain before the territory’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. The charter gives China’s Parliament the right to interpret the Basic Law, and the Communist leadership has done so four other times since the handover.
Monday’s ruling breaks new ground because it is the first time that Beijing has acted in a pending court case without a request by the Hong Kong government or judiciary, and because it appears to establish a mechanism for the authorities to block critics of Communist rule from taking elected office or even getting their names on ballots.
Some scholars said the decision went beyond interpreting the charter and amounted to rewriting the local statute governing how officials are to be sworn in. It requires lawmakers to read their oaths “completely and solemnly,” exactly as written, and orders those who administer oaths to disqualify lawmakers who alter or deliver the words in an “insincere or undignified manner,” barring them from office without another chance to be sworn in.
The decision also says lawmakers will be held liable if they violate their oaths, but it provides no guidance on who has the power to determine whether a lawmaker is in breach or what the punishment should be. The fear is that this will inject a degree of arbitrariness into a system that is based on rules underpinned by centuries of precedent under British common law.
“Whether it would affect my seat is secondary,” Nathan Law, 23, a new member of the Legislative Council who advocates greater self-determination for Hong Kong, said of the ruling by Beijing. “What’s most important is that the interpretation is vesting so much power in a person to decide whether someone is sincere and allegiant enough to take office, and there is no checks-and-balance against that person.”
The Basic Law says little about oaths, only that officials must swear allegiance “in accordance with law” to the “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.”
Two politicians elected to the legislature in September, Sixtus Leung, 30, known as Baggio, and Yau Wai-ching, 25, set off the legal case by changing the wording of their oaths, replacing the word China with “Chee-na,” a term that many find offensive and that was used by Japan during World War II, when it occupied much of China, including Hong Kong. Ms. Yau also inserted an obscenity.
The Chinese government condemned the pair and labeled them threats to national security for their advocacy of independence, and officials in Beijing left little doubt in announcing Monday’s decision that it was intended to keep them out of office.
Li Fei, the chairman of China’s parliamentary committee on the Basic Law, compared Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau, and their supporters, to traitors espousing a “fascist” line. “There is a great patriotic tradition in the Chinese nation,” he said. “All traitors and those who sell out their countries will come to no good end.”
He added that the government’s stance “will not be ambiguous or lenient.”
The United States, on the eve of its own presidential election, urged China not to undermine the “one country, two systems” formula that has protected basic civil liberties in Hong Kong.
The United States believes “an open society with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by the rule of law is essential for Hong Kong’s continued stability and prosperity as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China,” the State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said on Monday.
Hong Kong’s politicians reacted along predictable lines, with the pro-Beijing establishment endorsing the decision and the pro-democracy opposition criticizing it as an infringement on self-rule in the territory. The unpopular chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, vowed to fully enforce the decision, saying, “This is about the country’s unity and sovereignty.”
Michael Tien, a pro-Beijing lawmaker in Hong Kong who endorsed the ruling, said it could be used to screen future candidates running for office and to challenge those who have already taken seats in the 70-member Legislative Council, including several opposition lawmakers who have made statements in favor of self-determination or independence for Hong Kong.
“This thing is expansive,” Mr. Tien said in a telephone interview, adding that Beijing’s allies in Hong Kong could ask courts to rule on whether these lawmakers were sincere in swearing allegiance or had violated their oaths.
Such a process is likely to be contentious, said Simon Young, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, because the language of Beijing’s decision is short on specifics. It says nothing about whether advocating self-determination or independence violates an officeholder’s oath, for example, or how to handle candidates who change their position on the issue.
As a result, politicians such as Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau could seek to win back their seats by renouncing support for independence and going back to court. And that could lead Beijing to intervene further and issue new decisions to stamp out people it wants to disqualify.
“This will possibly be the first of a possible series of interpretations,” Mr. Young said. In the meantime, he added, “the courts in Hong Kong will have to interpret the interpretation.”
The Chinese government’s overarching goal is to crush a small but growing independence movement in Hong Kong, which gained momentum after Beijing rejected calls for free elections in the territory during the enormous pro-democracy demonstrations of 2014.
But by intervening in the legal case over Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau, Mr. Xi has drawn more attention to their cause, and he risks provoking a backlash that could strengthen it. In a scene that resembled the 2014 demonstrations, the police used pepper spray early Monday to battle crowds of protesters who had gathered around the Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, some of whom were shouting, “Hong Kong independence.”http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/world/asia/china-hong-kong-sixtus-leung-yau-wai-ching.html?ref=asia&_r=0
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