China’s grip on Hong Kong has tightened with a draconian new security law which has attracted international condemnation.
Officials say the law is essential for stability but opponents called it a “nail in the city’s coffin”. The new law allows for closed-door trials, gives the police rights to detain suspects for up to 16 days without charge and penalties including life sentences, among other things.
Hong Kong’s leader John Lee defended the law which was fast-tracked through its final phase on Tuesday saying the legislation would help the city “effectively prevent, suppress and punish espionage activities, conspiracies and traps from foreign intelligence agencies, and infiltration and sabotage by hostile forces”. Commentators fear the law could also be used to target HongKongers overseas, or their families and friends back home. The city has previously offered bounties for information on activists who fled overseas, and arrested four people in Hong Kong for supporting people abroad who “endanger national security”.
The Hong Kong 1 July 1997 chart has had a ruinous tr Pluto conjunct the Neptune through 2023 till late this year, which extends on as tr Pluto opposes the 5th house Venus this year and next putting a damper on self-expression and spontaneity. There is also a Solar Arc Uranus square the Pluto exactly now pointing to jarring changes and disruption. The second half of this decade does not offer much hope of positive change with tr Neptune Saturn in Aries impacting on the Capricorn Sun square Mars and tr Pluto conjunct the Uranus.
The relationship chart between HK and China 1912 has similar astro-challenges with a hostile/trapped tr Pluto opposition Mars till late this year and conjunct the Uranus in 2025/26 and square the composite Saturn as well which looks discouraging and agitated.
The present HK chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, a hardline former HK policeman, is under investigation by the EU as to whether he should be sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. His Term chart, 1 July 2022 10.20 am, with a ruthless, domineering Mars square Pluto will undoubtedly follow Beijing’s party line. The mood last year and this has been punitive with some jolts and tensions erupting this June onwards.
You can say what you like about the old empire and colonialism but in a toss up it was a million times better than this.
Long ago I used to think that historicallly and temperamentally, China is generally not an aggressor, though it likes to have buffer states ( ‘vassals’ paying tribute) which it generally left alone in governing, and provided security in exchange for the tribute. Its culture definitely reflected its Libran nature, emphasizing peace and harmony (to the detriment of Western-type individualism), a love of the arts, writing & literature in particular, and social ‘order’. If anything, it was subjected to aggression by European powers (which led, among other things, to the establishment of Hong Kong as British territory)
But that was the old, pre-revolutionary China. Some Libran influence persists, as Jane notes, but the Aries (& Uranus) influence does help explain the modern one; it’s one thing to defend itself, but it’s the ruthlessness in the quest for power which both saddens and terrifies, not only towards foreign powers but perhaps even more so against its own people (in which it includes Hong Kong and Taiwan residents). The domestic ruthlessness feels more like Saturn and/or Pluto than Aries, and in our times it’s particularly bad under Xi – for whom Astrotheme has a wide Mars (in Cancer) Sun conjunction, Saturn-Neptune in Libra (aspecting with the 1949 chart) and squaring Uranus/Mercury, Sun sextile Pluto. Pluto rules the house of work for a Gemini, and Pluto in Leo can be despotic. Xi appears to prefer sticking to his South Node in Leo, where his Moon (conjunct SN) trines Venus.
While there is internal discontent here and there, it’s hard to see how the state apparatus could be defeated – certainly not without a lot of bloodshed, which would require a whole lot of discontent and despair. Chinese history is viewed across much longer time spans by the Chinese themselves (as I learned from my historian father); and like Russians, the Chinese tend to be more easily resigned to their fate and circumstances. (Those who aren’t have fled)
Not so for Hong Kong residents, (many whose ancestors fled China), who once tasted and have now lost Western freedoms – it must be so much worse. Akin to what Ukrainians must fear should they ever be forced back into the Russian fold.
This activity smacks of Trump’s aspirations. I know, not exactly on target for astro talk. The man just doesn;t get it.
This is all so sad and distressing, although not unexpected, unfortunately. Interesting to see how it ties into the UK 1801 with China 1912’s ascendant at 14 Aries, on the UK North Node. China’s Nodes also in Aries, square its Uranus in Capricorn having the last rumblings of a Pluto transit.
China 1949 has Neptune 14 Libra, South Node 16 Libra, Mercury 13 Libra – the 14 Libra UK South Node, tying things together via laws and alliances of the past? That’s chiming with the Composite here, with its 14 Aries ascendant.
The approaching Lunar Eclipse at 5 Libra stirs China 1949 Sun, Hong Kong 1997 Mars on its descendant, and as we’ve noticed before, the UK ascendant 7 Libra. An eclipse on Mars suggests agitation, to say the least, and possibly aggression, weapons, fires and perhaps resistance. Composite Mercury is 5 Libra, but I’m not sure how that might work re an eclipse there.
HK 97 will also have April’s Solar Eclipse on Saturn, bringing in/enforcing more of Saturn’s restrictions and limitations? This is the eclipse that’s conjunct Chiron in Aries too, so may have deep resonance with past struggles and old memories? Aries always suggests action, and quite possibly fighting too. Since Mars in Aries stimulates these eclipse points as soon as May, the spring does look very troubled.
I wonder what Chris Patten is thinking now?
Indeed, sad to see another place being taken over by totalitarinism. The Saturn in Aries in 1st seems like a huge limiter for the 1997HK chart.
I’ve not seen the 1912 China chart but I’d guess that has late Gemini Pluto so it must be feeling under pressure from transit Neptune