Both the Chief Executive (CE) of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, and Zhang Xiaoming, the head of the Hong Kong and Macao Office under the Chinese State Council in Beijing, recently denounced the protests currently underway by arguing that they threaten the “one country, two systems” policy. That concept was first raised by Deng Xiaoping as a strategy to incorporate an open political and economic system, specifically Taiwan, into the Mainland’s “communist” system, all the while leaving the former’s liberal environment in place. But, in truth, the government in Beijing and the CEs it selected for Hong Kong have severely undermined this policy and destabilized Hong Kong’s political, social, and economic system. The policies instituted by the Hong Kong government (HKG), the rulings and articulated positions taken by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (SC-NPC) in Beijing (which is the highest legal authority determining Hong Kong’s laws), as well as other decisions taken by top leaders in Beijing, show that they, and not the youth who are fighting to keep Hong Kong a relatively open political and social system for the next 28 years, are largely responsible for eroding the “one country, two system” system.

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