Defending Beijing’s draconian crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong, following the extraordinary protest movement in 2019, the territory’s former leader, Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), would say that there was no “one-size-fits-all” approach to doing democracy. Such rhetoric was, of course, only ever disingenuous sophistry. The conclusion of Hong Kong’s largest-ever national security trial on Tuesday confirmed the grisly trajectory of recent years under Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超): A consolidation of nakedly authoritarian rule has led to the suppression of a once vibrant and politically diverse civil society.
Forty-five pro-democracy activists were jailed under Hong Kong’s punitive National Security Law, imposed by Beijing in 2020. Charged the same year with conspiracy to commit subversion against the state, their “crime” had been, in fact, to pursue a peaceful route to goals, including democratic elections for the city’s leader and police accountability.
Through an unofficial primary process — designed to create a shortlist of the strongest pro-democratic candidates ahead of legislative elections — activists had hoped to improve their chances of blocking bills in the legislative council.
However, authorities said they were planning to paralyze government business and used this as a pretext for wiping out the pro-democracy movement once and for all, removing its leading figures from the scene and intimidating sympathizers into silence.
Those sentenced on Tuesday had already been consigned to more than three years of limbo in detention. They comprise figures from across civic life, including social workers and academics, as well as activists such as Joshua Wong (黃之鋒). Defendants such as Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), a former lawmaker who was handed a four-year sentence, were high-profile figures in mainstream public life. The law professor and well-known activist Benny Tai (戴耀廷), cast by prosecutors as the mastermind behind the alleged conspiracy, was given a 10-year term, the harshest judgment to be delivered following the introduction of the NSL.
As a show trial intended to decapitate a movement and intimidate a population reaches its conclusion, it is painful to recall the different future Hong Kong was promised.
The criminalization of legitimate political activity completes the erasure of civil freedoms ostensibly guaranteed for half a century under the “one country, two systems” formula, which accompanied the territory’s 1997 return to Chinese rule. While the mainland has experienced years of growing repression under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Hong Kong has seen existing rights and freedoms ripped away at astonishing speed.
The jailing of five speech therapists in 2022 for publishing “seditious” children’s books was indicative of the lengths to which authorities now go to quash dissent beyond the political sphere.
As cosignatory of the treaty that supposedly preserved Hong Kong’s relative autonomy until 2047, Britain has a special responsibility to do what it can to focus global attention on a dire situation.
In a meeting on Monday with Xi at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rightly raised the case of the businessman and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai (黎智英), who has been detained in solitary confinement for almost four years.
As the National Security Law and other laws are used as a legislative hammer to crush the spirit and independence of Hong Kong’s civil society, many more cases demand attention and condemnation amid the rubble of the hopes of 2019.
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
RSS