'Super paradox' or 'Leninist integration' : the politics of legislating Article 23 of the Basic Law in post-handover Hong Kong

Liao Zhengzhi, the late director of the Office of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, once said that, on the resumption of Hong Kong’s sovereignty, Hong Kong needed only to change the flag and British governor after the Handover. While the press was full of doomsday prophecies about Hong Kong s future, there was another camp of 'super-paradox' theorists who genuinely believed that Hong Kong s status quo would not changed after the Handover, for an authoritarian one PQ1吵-dominated PRC could absorb a free- flowing Hong Kong without changing the nature of an open society. Contrary to doomsday prophets and 'super-paradox' theorists, this paper argues that, on the one hand, the doomsday prophecy was groundless, but on the other hand, important institutional changes did take place even though barely noticed. It is argued, by using the example of the legislation of Article 23, that a gradual approach has been adopted by the CCP to change the fundamentals of Hong Kong s polity, a strategy that I call 'Leninist integration’.