Anger over Hong Kong fire tests Beijing’s power ahead of elections

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Hong Kong officials have announced that legislative elections scheduled for Dec. 7 will go ahead as planned, even as anger grows over the devastating Wang Fuk Court fire, which killed at least 151 people and injured dozens more.

Regardless of public sentiment, there is no risk the government might lose power in Sunday’s polls. Since a crackdown that followed pro-democracy protests in 2019, the former British colony’s already semi-democratic system has only become less representative, with voters choosing just 22 per cent of the seats being contested – and even that small portion from a list of “patriots” approved by a government committee.

But the timing of the election is awkward nonetheless, because it highlights the degree to which Hong Kongers have little say in how they are governed, just as serious questions are being raised about government oversight and responsiveness.

Police and anti-corruption investigators have arrested 13 people in connection with the Wang Fuk Court fire, which officials have said spread so quickly in part owing to substandard materials used for renovations. On Monday, the government said seven samples of mesh netting used to cover scaffolding on the buildings did not meet fire standards.

“These people caused multiple deaths for petty gains,” Hong Kong Chief Secretary Eric Chan said.

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The swift police response has been well-received, and money and help have also poured into Hong Kong from mainland China. The local government has offered generous support and benefits to victims of the fire.

But as the shock of the disaster has faded, there is growing anger over how such a fire could happen in the first place and the government’s apparent unwillingness to set up an independent inquiry like the one that followed the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in Britain. Some have accused officials of seeking to blame construction materials – particularly bamboo scaffolding, an icon of Hong Kong’s development – rather than oversight or regulation failures.

Already, there are signs the government is concerned about how the public response to the fire – so far characterized by massive volunteer efforts to help the victims – could morph into a wider movement, just as minor demonstrations in 2014 and 2019 exploded into months-long pro-democracy protests.

Over the weekend, a former district councillor, Kenneth Cheung, and a student organizer, Miles Kwan, were both detained by national security police, according to local media. Mr. Cheung had posted online about the fire, while Mr. Kwan circulated a petition listing “four demands” for the government, an apparent echo of the “five demands, not one less” slogan of the 2019 protests.

In a statement, Hong Kong’s Office for Safeguarding National Security warned that “anti-China elements and those with ulterior motives remain restless and seek opportunities to cause trouble.”

It accused unspecified actors of having “maliciously attacked” the government’s response to the fire and “incited social division and confrontation.”

“They are exploiting people’s pain and defying public opinion, attempting to use victims’ grief to achieve their political ambitions, plunging Hong Kong back into the chaos of the ‘anti-extradition bill’ protests, and bringing back the darkest moments of ‘black-clad violence,’” the statement added, referring to the 2019 unrest.

The dilemma the government faces is one of its own making. By revamping elections to be “patriots only,” the authorities have removed a potential release valve for public anger. They have also lost a vital source of accountability and responsiveness, particularly at the local level, where fully elected district councils have been replaced by largely appointed bodies run by government bureaucrats and “care teams” akin to mainland China’s red-armband-wearing neighbourhood watch organizations.

In the past, district councillors and elected members of Hong Kong’s legislature were easily accessible, often giving their WhatsApp numbers to their constituents and sending out newsletters detailing the work they were doing. Many former councillors have been involved in the Wang Fuk Court fire response, organizing on the ground and online.

By comparison, representatives of the new system feel to many like extensions of the government, equally distant and unaccountable.

There is little danger that a mass protest movement could emerge like the one in 2019. Hong Kong’s civil society has been decimated in the years since, while national security police remain on high alert. In an editorial Monday, the state-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po warned that “the national security law hangs like a sharp blade overhead, ready at any moment to be unsheathed to eliminate those who disrupt Hong Kong’s society.”

Even before the Wang Fuk Court disaster, the authorities appeared nervous about Sunday’s election. Beijing has imposed upon Hong Kong a system in which only its favoured candidates can win, but it cannot force people to participate. Nor can it credibly claim mass voter turnout when there isn’t any (unlike, say, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or Rwanda’s Paul Kagame). Local authorities have been reduced to increasingly desperate get-out-the-vote campaigns, plastering billboards, public transport, fire engines, government buildings and taxis with posters reminding people to “join the election together, we create the future.”

More likely, however, Hong Kongers will demonstrate their disapproval of this system the only way left to them: by not taking part. Previous legislative polls, the first under the new system, saw record-low turnout. Facing mounting questions about whether the Wang Fuk Court fire could have been avoided, officials may fear Sunday’s turnout will be even lower.