Hong Kong’s Nobel nominees should aim for the bigger prize: democracy, not ‘self-determination’ from China

The nomination of three Hong Kong activists for the Nobel Peace Prize by a group of US congressmen has put the cat among the pigeons. The trio – Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law and Alex Chow – in the news for having served time in jail for the storming of the government offices and notable for their role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests, were cited as “champions of peace and freedom and Hong Kong’s entire pro-democracy movement”. This first nomination for a Hong Kong candidate immediately sets the Nobel committee on a potential collision course with China, which takes a less sanguine view of the movement.

The letter goes on to highlight the “peaceful efforts to bring political reform and self-determination to Hong Kong and protect the autonomy and freedom” enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law that has seen several reinterpretations by China’s top legislative body, most recently in the November 2016 decision by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which paved the way for the disqualification of elected “localist” lawmakers who made a travesty of their oath-taking ceremony.

While Chinese spokespeople have rubbished the Sino-British deal as a “historical document that no longer has any realistic meaning”, senior officials in charge of Hong Kong’s affairs have been equally quick to assert that this simply means times and contexts have changed. They reaffirm the treaty is legally binding but add that any future “one country, two systems” tweaks would be purely a domestic matter. This has been China’s line throughout; any hint of foreign interference is anathema.