What a difference a border makes. You know that old Grammy Award-winning Dinah Washington song, "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes?" Well, Dinah was right, days certainly make differences — but so do borders.
Take Shenzhen for example — this is where I'm interning this summer. Shenzhen is a sub-provincial city adjacent to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (S.A.R.). Both Shenzhen and the Hong Kong S.A.R. are part of the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), but a border separates them (consistent with the "One country, two systems" policy), and there are three main points at which to cross the land border between the two regions. Let me first tell you a little bit more about the border itself, and then I can tell you about the difference that border makes.
The Shenzhen-Hong Kong border crossing between Futian Kou'an 福田口岸 and Lok Ma Chau 落马洲 remains open until midnight; the border crossing at Luohu 罗湖 remains open later. The crossings at Lok Ma Chau 落马洲 and at Luohu 罗湖 are each serviced by metro stations on either side of the border, operated by the MTR Corporations of Hong Kong and of Shenzhen, respectively.
As I quickly learned, only the border crossing at Huanggang 皇岗, which is serviced not by metro, but rather by bus, is open 24 hours. Express buses transport passengers at all hours of day and night between Huanggang 皇岗 and the ferry pier in Wanchai 湾仔, and other destinations in Hong Kong, generally within 45 minutes — and for prices of HK$50 (=US$6.42) or less.
In Shenzhen, a river separates mainland China from Hong Kong. But differences between the legal rights of mainland Chinese citizens, and those of Hong Kong citizens, make the border between them feel like a distance far greater than a mere 150 meters.
Both the P.R.C. Constitution and The Basic Law of the Hong Kong S.A.R. guarantee freedom of the person, and the freedoms of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. But whereas Hong Kong citizens exercise these rights regularly, mainland Chinese citizens mainly enjoy these rights on paper alone.
On the mainland, official July 1 celebrations for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (C.P.C.) were carefully choreographed and widely publicized to an apparent absence of either public participation or unrest. As one Beijing taxi driver told me, "The celebrations are only for the Party and its members. They don't have anything to do with ordinary people."
In Hong Kong, people marked that same anniversary — which was also the 14th anniversary of the handover — with the largest July 1 protest in seven years. Official organizers estimate that 218,000 people turned out for the protest, while police put the figure at 54,000.
Where the border is concerned, Hong Kong citizens also enjoy a greater freedom of movement than mainland Chinese citizens do: it is far easier for Hong Kong citizens to visit mainland China, and comparably more difficult for mainland Chinese to visit Hong Kong.
Accordingly, I can and have visited Hong Kong with greater ease than my mainland Chinese colleagues. My multiple-entry P.R.C. visa permits me to return to the mainland as frequently as I want, but I don't require a visa to go to Hong Kong — and a stamp in my U.S. passport allows me to stay there for up to 90 days.
In contrast, most mainland Chinese citizens can only stay in Hong Kong for one week at a time, and need the equivalent of a visa to travel there. Each and every time a mainland citizen wants to visit Hong Kong, they must return to the main Public Security Bureau (P.S.B.) office of the city in which they are registered to reside. (Most people refer to this as "the city where my household registration [or hukou 户口] is located.") At that P.S.B. office, they must apply for a two-way permit (or tongxingzheng 通行证) — which looks and functions like a passport — or, if they already possess a two-way permit, they must obtain an exit endorsement (or wanglai gang'ao qianzheng 往来港澳签证) — which looks and functions like a visa — that, in most cases, permits them to travel to Hong Kong once, and to stay there for up to 7 days. In addition, most mainland citizens can only visit Hong Kong once within a 30-day period.
Other examples abound demonstrating the different legal rights of mainland Chinese versus Hong Kong citizens. Although mainland citizens' freedom of the person is ostensibly guaranteed, the government violates that freedom without respect "for even the modest requirements of its own laws".
Furthermore, it is by no means true that one is safe in mainland China as long as one does not go looking for trouble. If you are considered a "high risk" person, a category "including former inmates, vagrants and the mentally ill," and the reputation of your city is deemed to be at stake because the city will play host to a major international sporting event — such as the 26th Summer Universiade — within a few months' time, the local people's government may elect to temporarily banish you from that city, seemingly without recourse.
Such has been the backdrop of my summer internship with Yirenping, a Chinese N.G.O.
In order to avoid confrontation with the government, Yirenping has formulated and adheres to a narrow mandate as an apolitical, non-religiously affiliated, civil rights-focused N.G.O. that now strives to eliminate discrimination of all kinds (formerly focused on combating discrimination on the basis of Hepatitis B and H.I.V./A.I.D.S.), to strengthen workers' rights, and to promote the general welfare through public health and education.
A newer project of Yirenping's Shenzhen office concerns mental health regulation reform; the mission is to put an end to improper involuntary civil commitment of private citizens in psychiatric institutions. This topic has been and will continue to be the main focus of my work and of my comparative legal research here.
This is a very exciting time to be in China and involved in the issue of mental health law. On the afternoon of June 8, I was briefed by an Yirenping attorney regarding the lobbying she had done that morning with Shenzhen municipal legislators. Those legislators were drafting an updated mental health law to take effect in the city, and at the time, Shenzhen was one of seven Chinese cities — along with Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Ningbo and Wuxi — that had passed municipal mental health laws. Two days later, on June 10, the P.R.C. central government published a new draft national mental health law, and announced that the public would have one month — until July 10 — to comment on this new draft.
If promulgated, the national mental health law will supersede the municipal efforts of the seven aforementioned Chinese cities; and while the draft national law advances more positive reforms than do the respective municipal laws, it also contains dangerous loopholes which, if left unchanged, could legalize the psychiatric commitment of political dissidents on a large scale. My co-intern in Shenzhen and I have already translated this draft national mental health law (ZH original / EN translation).
Although the central government put an early end to the public comment period, and barred further suggestions on June 25 — the day after an Yirenping partner attorney and I met in Beijing with an American expert on mental disability law— the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council of the P.R.C. has received and accepted Yirenping's formal letter providing suggestions on the draft mental health law. I will translate that formal suggestion letter this week.
In addition to translating, in Beijing I had the opportunity to attend two conferences pertaining to P.R.C. law. I have also been able to liaise with other organizations and individuals both in mainland China and in Hong Kong. This internship with Yirenping has been everything I had hoped it would be, and more...but the diverse opportunities with which the internship has presented me have kept me more than a little busy!
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