Since SARS rocked the city’s economy in 2003, Chinese state-controlled companies poured money into the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Soon, China’s involvement extended into Hong Kong's economy and development. Yet the final interpretation of the city’s constitution would lie not with Hong Kong’s courts, but with China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. Hong Kong would exist as a special part of China-with its own rights, legislature, and legal system-until 2047. In 1984, when Britain agreed to relinquish the colony of Hong Kong, Beijing officials promised that when China took over, the city’s government would have “a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defense affairs.” By the time the transfer happened, at midnight on July 1, 1997, it became clear that autonomy had notable asterisks. Hong Kong’s young are a generation in limbo waiting for this era to end. A person who was accused by police of unauthorized assembly in 2019 could wind up charged months or even years later.
New cases begin in court all the time most crimes in city ordinances carry no deadlines for filing charges. The prosecutors portray the protesters in the videos-which are stripped of context and background, with almost no views of police actions-as violent offenders. Protest nights play out inside courtrooms, as prosecutors show video snippets of black-clad youngsters at barricades, sometimes throwing bricks and smashing windows. Each day, in courthouses all over the city, magistrates and judges oversee cases of public disorder, assault, weapons, and riot. Hundreds of people arrested during the protests are serving terms in prison and juvenile detention centers. As of February, the government had brought charges against 2,800 people, about half of whom were found guilty or signed orders to obey the law.
The “social unrest” still lingers, at least in the court system. Hong Kong International Airport grounded more than 200 flights, as many air traffic controllers failed to show up to work. Teachers skipped school lifeguards and construction workers called in sick. Young people sprawled across the entrances of subway cars, jamming doors open and stopping entire train lines. Hong Kongers blocked roads with metal barriers and trash. That change, citizens feared, would give China the chance to further meddle with the city's criminal justice system. They had organized to fight a proposed amendment to Hong Kong’s extradition law. The day before, the city had shuddered to a halt as citizens set off the biggest labor strike in half a century. If the merchants had remained closed that day, no one would have blamed them. It was boiling hot, and Fong was dressed in the uniform of the young: untucked dark tee, black shorts, and sneakers. That evening, Keith Fong, a 20-year-old college student at Hong Kong Baptist University, arrived to peruse the wares. Throughout the day, the street hummed with pedestrians. At the far end of the street, a saleswoman fussed with her stock of flashlights and laser pointers. They had resumed their place in the solar system of Hong Kong’s local economy-selling everyday items at bargain prices. On the morning of August 6, 2019, merchants along Apliu Street unbolted the padlocks to their metal stalls and heaved open the heavy gates to their stores.
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