Governmental Seminar
Speaker: Albert H. Y. Chen (Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong)
Title: The “Umbrella Movement” and the Struggle for Democracy in Hong Kong: The Story of “One Country, Two Systems”
Date&Time: 4 Jun. (Thu.) 2015, 13:15-14:45
Venue: Lecture room1 (3F), Medical Education & Library Building
Summary:
Since 1997, the former British colony of Hong Kong has become a “Special Administrative Region” (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under a political-constitutional arrangement known as “One Country, Two Systems” (OCTS). OCTS was first stipulated in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a treaty signed in 1984 whereby Britain agreed to return Hong Kong to China in 1997. The Hong Kong Basic Law enacted by the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) in 1990, grants to the Hong Kong SAR a “high degree of autonomy”, and provides for the progressive introduction of democracy in Hong Kong.
Since 2003, a democracy movement has developed in Hong Kong. The movement reached a climax in the “Umbrella Movement” (also known as the “Occupy Central Movement”) in 2014. The struggle for democracy in Hong Kong reveals the tension and possible contradiction in “One Country, Two Systems”, under which China is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party while the aspirations of Hong Kong’s democracy movement are towards Western-style liberal democracy and human rights. This lecture seeks to tell this story of Hong Kong’s quest for democracy that culminated in the “Umbrella Movement” of 2014.
