Two days ago, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference announced that China will shortly introduce legislation to further silence pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. One source told the South China Morning Post the new law would “ban all seditious activities … external interference in Hong Kong’s affairs .. and target terrorist acts in Hong Kong.” Commentary published by the state news agency Xinhua urged a “zero-tolerance attitude to this cancer on the body of the country” even though the Basic Law already empowers Hong Kong to enact “on its own” laws that prevent similar activities.
Veteran China watcher Bill Bishop describes the move as one which “affirms that Hong Kong as we knew it is gone and rule of law is now rule by law, with the Chinese Communist Party determining what the laws are and how they will be enforced.” He adds that the “international reaction will be long on rhetoric, but will there be any real action?” It is a question that autocrats all over the world must be asking themselves as they ponder similar tactics.
Beijing’s internal power struggles have been complicated by Trump’s re-election strategy which involves blaming China for many of his administration’s failures during the pandemic. More than once Trump has threatened to cancel the US-China trade deal signed in January. If, perhaps inadvertently, he talks himself into doing so, this will have global repercussions. As Bishop notes, Trump’s recent rhetoric suggests a convergence of “more hawkish national security” interests with his domestic political manoeuvres. If he does jettison the deal “hardline national security policies” will follow including possible Magnitsky Act sanctions against China and provocative support for Taiwan. These could easily spark “a trade war, tech war, information war, financial war and, best case in this scenario, cold war.”
Whether none, some, or all of these dire scenarios come to pass will depend a great deal on diplomacy. In this regard, China has recently taken a hawkish turn. President Xi doubled the foreign ministry’s budget between 2013-18 and has granted generous annual increases ever since. His diplomats have been allowed to use digital platforms prohibited within China, and even to provoke their Western counterparts. Zhao Lijian, current deputy director of Foreign Affairs became briefly notorious last June after a combative Twitter exchange with former U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice. When they argued over the mass detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang province, an exasperated Rice ended up calling Zhao a ‘racist disgrace.’ Yesterday, responding to U.S. pushback against the proposed Hong Kong legislation, Zhao rejected U.S. criticism and said no other nation would tolerate separatists who threaten national unity.
Earlier in the day the US had condemned China’s actions with a bipartisan Senate resolution. Minority leader Chuck Schumer warned President Xi that “Your suppression of freedom, whether in Hong Kong, in northwest China or anywhere else, will not stand. You cannot be a great leader – and you cannot be a great country – when you oppose freedom, when you are so brutal to the people of Hong Kong, young and old, who are protesting.” These stern words are encouraging, but condemnation alone will make little difference to the people of Hong Kong.
In the final chapter of his memoir, “Unfree Speech”, the activist Joshua Wong writes that “Notwithstanding Beijing’s effort to keep the city in a state of perpetual adolescence, [Hong Kong] has outgrown itself and its master. Hong Kongers, too, have evolved from detached economic beings to noble freedom fighters.” Wong is keenly aware of the city’s growing power as a symbol of resistance: “From Turkey and Ukraine to India, Myanmar and the Philippines, citizens are pushing back oppressive regimes in defence of their diminishing rights. But nowhere else in the world is the struggle between free will and authoritarianism more clearly demonstrated than here.”
Last September Wong presciently warned the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China that “What’s happening in Hong Kong matters to the world. The people of Hong Kong are standing at the forefront to confront China’s authoritarian rule. If Hong Kong falls, the next may be the free world.”
