Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
West Protests "Security" Law for Hong Kong
The US, UK, Canada and Australia have issued a joint statement protesting the Chinese Communist government's decision to pass a law designed to reduce freedoms in Hong Kong in contravention of international agreements. The US has also threatened to revoke the special trading status that the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong has enjoyed since it was a British Crown Colony. The law has yet to pass the rubber stamp parliament in Beijing, but it appears that Hong Kong has lost a large measure, possibly all, of the autonomy it enjoyed.
The ChiComs have wanted to destroy the "one country, two systems" deal that it made with the UK in order to get control of Hong Kong since before the ink dried on the treaty. When the treaty was signed in 1997, Hong Kong accounted for about 18% of the Chinese GDP. At that level, giving the people in the former colony rights that no one on the mainland had was an acceptable trade off. The 50-year sunset of this provision was viewed as a while worth waiting. China has grown radically in the last quarter century, and Hong Kong contributes 2-3% of the PRC's GDP. Letting people criticize the government and vote (even in the ridiculously undemocratic elections of Hong Kong) are no longer worth it to President Xi. After a year of protests in Hong Kong, he has had enough.
Thus, he has decided that the security law that the Legislative Council has never passed needs to become law. If the LegCo won't do it, the Beijing parliament will. This is a violation of the joint declaration the UK and PRC issued in 1985 that provided for the handover in 1997.
The Four-Party declaration reads in part, "Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom. The international community has a significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong's prosperity and stability. Direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions as provided for under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong's autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous.
"China's decision to impose the new national security law on Hong Kong lies in direct conflict with its international obligations under the principles of the legally-binding, UN-registered Sino-British Joint Declaration. The proposed law would undermine the One Country, Two Systems framework. It also raises the prospect of prosecution in Hong Kong for political crimes, and undermines existing commitments to protect the rights of Hong Kong people -- including those set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights."
China does not care, or more accurately, President Xi does not care. Shanghai and Shenzhen have developed capital services businesses of their own. So long as Beijing controls the flow of money in and out of the PRC, they have a hard time competing with Hong Kong. However, that is an issue for another day. President Xi is prepared to destroy Hong Kong's economic importance if he must to prevent the spread of a virus that is far more dangerous to his regime than Covid-19, viz. democratic values and habits.
When the new law comes into effect in September, Beijing will move against all activists and civil society organizations that don't toe the ChiCom line. Naturally, "If you do not plan to engage in acts of secession, subversion, terrorism or conspiring with foreign influence in connection with Hong Kong affairs, you will have no reason to fear," Tung Chee-hwa, who was the city’s chief executive at the time of the 2003 national legislation, said on Monday.
Of course, Beijing prosecutors and handpicked judges and juries will decide if an inconvenient person has engaged in such activities. It is tantamount to saying "if the police were after him, he must have done something wrong." When the Chinese Communist Party loses a fair election and serves in parliament as the opposition, then this law will be acceptable. Until then, it is merely a tool to keep the Chinese people under the boot of the Red Fascists.
© Copyright 2020 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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