Minxin Pei believes the October 31 communiqué of the recently concluded fourth plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) may seal Hong Kong’s fate. Over 200 Communist leaders gathered in Beijing behind closed doors two weeks ago. In response to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong they said they were committed to upholding the principle of "one country, two systems". But it is more likely that President Xi Jinping “is planning to tighten his grip on the former British colony at any cost.”

The leadership has vowed to maintain “lasting prosperity and stability” in Hong Kong and Macau, and promised to promote the peaceful reunification of China. The author says the communiqué includes “two ominous pledges” – Hong Kong and Macau must be governed in strict accordance with the constitution and the Basic Law; and the legal system and enforcement mechanism of the two special administrative regions should be established and improved to defend national security.

Critics in Hong Kong maintain that the formulation of the Basic Law, when it was introduced during the China-UK handover negotiation, was intended to exclude China’s constitution. They fear that the Communist Party of China (CPC) would impose China’s political and legal system on Hong Kong. Some provisions of the Basic Law were designed to effectively separate the two political and legal systems. The original intention of the Basic Law legislation was to make China’s constitution irrelevant to Hong Kong’s mini-constitution that defines its status.

Now the full text of the communiqué endorsed by the Central Committee makes it clear that the “central government intends to change the process for appointing Hong Kong’s chief executive and key officials, and reform the system governing how the Chinese National People’s Congress Standing Committee interprets the Basic Law.”

When Deng Xiaoping met with a delegation from Hong Kong and Macao in 1984 he told them that “you are not required to love socialism and support the Communist Party. As long as you support the return of Hong Kong to China, you are patriotic.” While Article 1 of the constitution states that socialism is practiced in China, the Basic Law says, Hong Kong citizens do not need to support socialism and the CPC.

Obviously Beijing seeks to ignore the “one country, two systems” principle upon the handover in 1997. China “will support the strengthening of Hong Kong’s law-enforcement capabilities and ensure that the city government enacts legislation to enhance national security. It will also deepen Hong Kong’s economic integration with the mainland and expand ‘education’ programs to cultivate a ‘national consciousness and patriotic spirit,’ especially among civil servants and young people.”

The author says “China’s leaders must know that they will run into powerful resistance,” and that the people in Hong Kong “will not go down without a fight.” When protests turn more violent, and the city plunges further into chaos and becomes "ungovernable," it will play into Chinese leaders’ hands – giving them “an excuse to deploy security forces and impose direct control over the city. In that sense, the fourth plenum may mark the beginning of the end of Hong Kong as we know it.”

It is time for the leadership in Beijing to calculate the economic and political loss of killing the Hong Kong golden goose. “China is likely to lose much of its access to the global financial system as countries revise their relationships with the new Hong Kong.”

Besides, the US “has adopted a bill that, if also passed by the Senate, would mandate an annual review by the State Department to determine whether Hong Kong remained sufficiently autonomous to justify its special trading status under US law.”

Chinese leaders risk international isolation if more and more countries rally around America’s efforts to contain and punish their country. Two years ago, Xi declared that by 2049 when the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary, it should be a “great modern socialist country” with an advanced economy. This objective was reiterated in the communiqué. The author says, “if China’s central government reneges on its obligations to Hong Kong, that goal is likely to become little more than a distant dream.”