Protesters accused Britain of failing to hold Beijing to account over its treatment of Hong Kong. Photo:AFP / Nicolas ASFOURI
LIBERTY is under siege in Hong Kong where a new draconian security law has been imposed by Mainland China that threatens the cherished freedoms of the city and its autonomy. With its Hong Kong national security law last month, China upturns the unique liberties enjoyed by the 7.5 million people of the city, extends the direct control of Beijing’s authoritarian system in violation of the city’s special status guaranteed in a treaty until 2047 and escalates what analysts have called a new “cold war” with the West. The world should stand resolutely with Hong Kong to oppose the power grab, in defence of the principle of freedom and respect for the sanctity of international agreements.
The sweeping law and some of its vaguely worded articles attack free speech, freedom of association, judicial independence and press freedom and constraint civil society. In effect, it allows mainland security officials to criminalise any activity critical of the government as terrorism or subversion and extends the autocratic, freedom-restricting mainland penal system to the capitalist, liberal city that 155 years of British rule and a treaty had gifted with Common Law liberties. In mainland China, The Guardian (London) says, national security legislation is used to punish dissidents, scholars, lawyers and activists on the mainland. The most famous, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, died three years ago while serving his 11-year sentence for inciting state subversion, having co-authored and gathered signatures for a letter calling for democratic reforms. His is a setback for democracy, a violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the International Convention on Civic and Political Rights.
Liberal democracy and institutional safeguards of freedom have lately come under threat globally. Freedom House, an NGO, found 2019 to be the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom with dictators “toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic freedom and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world.” This is alarming; it is the responsibility of liberals everywhere and democracies, including Nigeria, to push back against the assault on dissent and fundamental rights exemplified in the Chinese distemper. The World Economic Forum and the Economist Intelligence Unit also separately reported that democracies and fundamental freedoms have been in retreat. “Countries with declining levels of democracy outnumbered those becoming more democratic by more than 2 to 1,” said EIU.
Ordinarily, the passage of yet another oppressive ordinance in a one-party state would have attracted nothing more than the usual statements of concern by activists, global rights groups and liberal democracies, followed by the usual retort from the dictatorship that outsiders mind their business. But Hong Kong is no ordinary piece in the international financial and strategic chess board. The city matters greatly to the world and to China, of which it is a part, albeit a unique part. It is Asia’s financial hub, “a global powerhouse for trade, finance and insurance” writes Quartz, a global news portal. It is the world’s third most important financial centre after London and New York, the fifth largest foreign exchange trading centre and ranks among the top five cargo ports.
But it is equally vital to the growth and maintenance of China’s global trade dominance. As the gateway to mainland China, 64 percent of the foreign direct investment flowing into the country comes through the city. It accounted for 73 percent of mainland companies’ initial public offerings overseas between 2010 and 2018, 60 percent of their bond issuance and 26 percent of their syndicated loans.
Its importance also lies in its history and the special status it enjoys in Communist-led China. Run as a British colony since 1842, it was transferred to China in 1997, facilitated by the SBJD of 1984 and concretised in the Basic Law that recognised the country as a Special Administrative Region. Under the “one country, two systems” principle, Hong Kong (and Macau from 1999) are to continue to enjoy freedoms they had under British (Portuguese for Macau) rule, including universal suffrage and free enterprise after reunification. “The socialist system and policies shall not be practiced in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years,” says Article 5.
The free world should therefore stand vigorously against the escalation of Beijing’s incremental trampling on Hong Kong’s freedoms. Legal experts say the law fundamentally changes the territory’s legal system, introducing new crimes with harsh penalties, including life imprisonment, and extending mainland security and judicial authority over the city. A BBC analyst says it “gives Beijing extensive powers it has never had before to shape life in the territory far beyond the legal system.”
Undoubtedly, the law is aimed at squelching the boisterous love of liberty by Hong Kong’s residents and bringing them to unquestioning obedience and conformity as the rest of the country’s 1.4 billion people. Under President Xi Jinping, China has become an assertive, sometimes bullying, economic, political and military power, aggressively pushing unfettered sovereignty claims over Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and disputed islands with several countries in the South and East China seas.
He has been particularly impatient with the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong who have periodically staged global attention-riveting protests in opposition to Beijing’s constant interference with the city and attempts to disregard the 2047 deadline for full assumption of central authority. The Umbrella Revolution or Occupy Movement featured street protests from September to December 2014 to resist an attempt by China to restrict voting rights. The protests begun March last year are raging intermittently still, in opposition to a Fugitive Offenders Bill that sought to extend extradition rights. These have focussed negative attention on China and angered the Communist Party.
Greater pressure needs to be applied to frustrate Xi’s calculation that a world reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic ruin, Donald Trump’s weakening of the United States-led Western coalition and its capacity, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, to act, would give him wiggle room. Europe should ramp up trade and diplomatic action in support of the United Kingdom’s offer of citizenship to three million Hong Kong residents and forge wider international alliances to counter China. Apart from extending existing trade and diplomatic sanctions, the US has rightly suspended its special trade relationship with Hong Kong and is considering further punitive options.
An assault on liberty anywhere threatens everyone. The European Union should vigorously implement its resolution to use its economic leverage as China’s largest export destination to challenge the “comprehensive assault on fundamental freedoms” and include human rights clauses in any future trade deals with China. The United Nations and its agencies should provide all necessary support to defend freedom and the sanctity of treaties.
Nigeria needs to regain its voice in Africa and mobilise ECOWAS, the African Union, join other Third World democracies, NGOs and the Free World to stand by Hong Kong as the Chinese dragon bares its fiery fangs.
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