——写在香港民主党解散之后
作者：张致君
编辑：李聪玲 责任编辑：钟然 校对：王滨 翻译：刘芳
2025年12月14日，香港民主党宣布解散。
在任何一个正常的政治体制中，反对派的存在，从来不是威胁。恰恰相反，它是一种证明——证明权力仍然承认自身有限，证明制度仍然相信辩论，证明统治仍然愿意被质询、被监督、被纠错。而当一个政权不再允许反对派存在，它真正表达的只有一件事：它已经不再需要被解释。
香港民主党的角色，从来不是推翻秩序。它所做的，只是提醒秩序仍需回应人民。
12月14日，这个成立逾三十年、曾是香港立法会最大反对党的政党，走到了终点。据路透社报道，民主党高层曾被中国官员或中间人接触，被明确告知：若不解散，将面临被捕等严重后果。这不是一次政治竞争的失败，而是一次制度性“清场”的完成。
民主党成立于1994年，诞生于香港仍被视为一个“可以讨论未来”的地方。它长期作为反对派领头羊，主张民主改革，维护自由、人权与法治——这些在过去曾被写入香港政治语言的词汇，如今却变得危险。
2020年，民主党公开反对《国安法》。同年，自行规划初选。结果并非选举失败，而是政治后果：时任党主席胡志伟被捕，反对派整体被视为“风险源”。
2021年，北京彻底重塑香港选举制度，只允许经审查的“爱国者”参选。反对派从议会被逐步清除，不是因为输了选票，而是因为失去了被允许存在的资格。政治不再是竞争，而变成筛选。最终的结局，并不突然。
2025年2月，民主党宣布启动解散程序；4月，授权中委会处理解散与清盘。而12月14日，只是制度逻辑的最后一步。一个不再允许反对派存在的体制，并不是更稳定，而是更脆弱。
因为反对派真正的功能，从来不是夺权，而是让权力记住：它仍然需要解释自己。
当反对派被清除，权力不再需要回答“为什么”；当议会只剩一种声音，错误也失去了被纠正的路径；当制度不再容许不同意见，社会便只剩下顺从与沉默。
而沉默，并不等于认同。香港民主党的解散，并不意味着它曾经代表的价值消失了。它只意味着，这些价值已经无法在公开政治中被表达。在一个仍然自信的制度里，反对派是被容忍的；在一个失去安全感的体制里，反对派是必须被消灭的。
历史会记住的，并不只是一个政党的终结，而是一个城市何时、如何，被剥夺了说“不”的权利。当反对派不再存在，问题从来不是“谁赢了”，而是：这个制度，已经不打算再回答任何人。
When the Opposition Is Eliminated, the System No Longer Needs to Explain Itself
—Written after the Dissolution of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party
Abstract:
The dissolution of the Democratic Party in 2025 marks the institutional eradication of Hong Kong’s opposition. This was not an electoral defeat, but the outcome of political screening. With dissent eliminated, power no longer needs to explain itself, and the system moves toward fragility and enforced silence.
Author: Zhang Zhijun
Editor: Li Congling Executive Editor: Zhong Ran Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator: Liu Fang
On December 14, 2025, Hong Kong’s Democratic Party announced its dissolution.
In any normal political system, the existence of an opposition has never been a threat. On the contrary, it is a form of proof—proof that power still recognizes its own limits, that the system still believes in debate, and that governance remains willing to be questioned, supervised, and corrected. When a regime no longer allows an opposition to exist, it is expressing only one thing: it no longer needs to be explained.
The role of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party was never to overthrow the order. What it did was simply to remind that the order still needed to respond to the people.
On December 14, this political party—founded more than thirty years ago and once the largest opposition force in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council—reached its end. According to Reuters, senior figures in the Democratic Party had been approached by Chinese officials or intermediaries and were explicitly told that failure to dissolve the party would result in severe consequences, including arrest. This was not the failure of political competition, but the completion of an institutional “clearance operation.”
Founded in 1994, the Democratic Party was born at a time when Hong Kong was still regarded as a place where the future could be discussed. For many years it served as the leading opposition force, advocating democratic reform and defending freedom, human rights, and the rule of law—terms that were once written into Hong Kong’s political language but have since become dangerous.
In 2020, the Democratic Party openly opposed the National Security Law. That same year, it helped plan a primary election on its own initiative. The outcome was not electoral defeat, but political retribution: then–party chairman Wu Chi-wai was arrested, and the opposition as a whole was treated as a “risk factor.”
In 2021, Beijing comprehensively reshaped Hong Kong’s electoral system, allowing only vetted “patriots” to run for office. The opposition was gradually expelled from the legislature—not because it lost votes, but because it lost the permission to exist. Politics ceased to be competition and became screening. The final outcome was not sudden.
In February 2025, the Democratic Party announced the initiation of dissolution procedures; in April, it authorized its central committee to handle dissolution and liquidation. December 14 was merely the final step in the system’s logic. A system that no longer allows an opposition to exist is not more stable, but more fragile.
Because the true function of an opposition has never been to seize power, but to remind power that it still needs to explain itself.
When the opposition is eliminated, power no longer needs to answer “why”; when the legislature is left with only one voice, errors lose their path to correction; when a system no longer tolerates dissent, society is left with only obedience and silence.
And silence does not equal consent. The dissolution of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party does not mean that the values it once represented have disappeared. It only means that these values can no longer be expressed in open politics. In a system that remains confident, the opposition is tolerated; in a system that has lost its sense of security, the opposition must be destroyed.
History will remember not merely the end of a political party, but when and how a city was stripped of its right to say “no.” When the opposition no longer exists, the question is never “who won,” but whether this system has already decided that it will no longer answer to anyone at all.
