The Chinese Communist Party, through what it portrays as its legislature (the “National People’s Congress”), has enacted a law crushing democracy in Hong Kong.
Under the guise of protecting “national security,” the new law criminalizes as “subversion” and “terrorism” various expressions of protest and political dissent. It further endeavors to cut off Hong Kong’s support lines by criminalizing, as conspiracy to endanger national security, sundry exchanges with other countries and outside groups.
The people of Hong Kong have been protesting against Beijing’s increasingly overt repression for over a year. President Trump, however, has prized what he claims is a strong personal relationship with China’s CCP strongman, Xi Xinping; he has thus been reluctant to pressure Beijing or lend rhetorical support to democracy activists – in stark contrast to President Ronald Reagan’s support for the anti-Communist democracy movement in Poland.
HONG KONG POLICE ISSUE FIRST ARREST UNDER CHINA’S CONTROVERSIAL SECURITY LAW
More recently though, with Beijing’s cover-up of the origins and seriousness of the novel coronavirus having contributed mightily to a deep U.S. economic downturn and the wounding of his reelection bid, the president has reversed course.
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“China claims it is protecting national security, but the truth is that Hong Kong was secure and prosperous as a free society,” Trump recently asserted. “Beijing’s decision reverses all of that.”
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The Trump administration has indicated that some sanctions would be imposed on some Chinese officials responsible for strangling Hong Kong, though not on Xi. It has further vowed to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential customs and trade status – a move that makes sense if Hong Kong is now like any other Chinese city, but that will hurt Hong Kong more than it does China.
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All in all, however, the U.S. has done nothing with much bite, certainly nothing that has dissuaded Xi from his course.
The law imposed by Beijing effectively overrides Hong Kong’s independent legal system. Essentially, it establishes a category of national security cases. Hong Kong’s nominal chief executive, currently the CCP’s puppet Carrie Lam, is to set up a national security commission dominated by Beijing, and Chinese intelligence operatives will operate inside Hong Kong to “advise” local officials on national-security threats.
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