Hong Kong activist on trial for subversion calls one-party rule ‘regression’

A Hong Kong barrister turned activist on trial for allegedly inciting subversion has accused Beijing of undermining the nation’s constitutional order by entrenching one-party rule, describing the move as a regression.Chow Hang-tung told West Kowloon Court on Monday that mainland China took a step backwards in 2018 by amending the constitution to enshrine the Communist Party’s leadership in its main text at a time when the country was gradually heading towards constitutional democracy.She maintained that advocating an end to one-party rule on the mainland was not the same as seeking to oust the party from its leading position under the constitution, adding that pursuing a democratic change in society should not be considered illegal in the first place.“A so-called paradox in the constitution of China is that nobody has ever tested in reality whether one-party rule is equivalent to leadership by the China" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="7909" data-entity-type="organization">Communist Party of China,” Chow said.“How should the line between dictatorship and leadership be drawn? The constitution plainly doesn’t have an answer.”Chow Hang-tung poses during a photo session in Hong Kong on March 21, 2021. Photo: AFPChow, 41, was contesting allegations that she had instigated others to subvert the state by promoting an end to “one-party dictatorship”, one of five operational objectives of the now-disbanded China" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="16309" data-entity-type="organization">Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.