Benedict Rogers: Hongkongers deserve Nobel Peace Prize

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi isn’t usually my source of inspiration. But on his tour of Europe – a visit that was not as smooth as he might have wished – Wang Yi gave me an idea. He warned Norway not to give Hongkongers the Nobel Peace Prize – which is, in my view, precisely why Hong Kong should receive the prize this year.

For a foreign minister of any country to interfere with – indeed threaten – the Nobel Committee is a direct contravention of the principles of the prize. In typical Chinese Communist Party irony, he warned others not to “politicise” the prize while doing exactly that himself, and he warned others not to “interfere” in China’s internal affairs – while blatantly interfering everywhere he went.

So I say: let’s give Hongkongers the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. They have already been nominated in the past in various forms. As the grandfather of China experts Jerome Cohen puts it: “Nothing would be more appropriate this year than for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to one or more Hong Kong organisations that have been striving to protect human rights in Hong Kong and the Mainland.”

Why? For three reasons.

First, as I have long argued, Hong Kong is the front-line in the fight for freedom against tyranny. What was once one of Asia’s freest cities is now rapidly coming under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party regime. Nowhere symbolises the clash of values – between freedom and authoritarianism, between human rights and brutal repression, between the rule of law and rule by law, between truth and lies – more starkly and immediately than Hong Kong. The brave people who stand on the side of liberty, rights, rule of law and truth deserve recognition.

Second, it would give Hongkongers much needed hope.

Earlier this week, as we marked the anniversary of the Prince Edward attack by the Hong Kong Police Force on protesters, and as we saw yet more police brutality, including a pregnant woman and her husband assaulted by police, I read a letter from a Hongkonger which had been sent to me in June but – due to the COVID-19 lockdown – had only just reached me.

This anonymous Hongkonger wrote to wish me a happy birthday – an act of extraordinary, yet typical, generosity from the people of the city that I love, in stark contrast with the regime and police that terrorizes them.

I want to be careful not to identify the author of the letter, which is why I did not photograph or tweet the original. But my unknown friend gives a painful but not surprising description of Hong Kong.

“Everything has changed these years, the atmosphere of Hong Kong has been changed adversely much,” he writes. “Nowadays the air is full of the smell of the ‘Cultural Revolution’. I participated in countless protests. I sweated and tore, and I felt my faintness grew with the increment in the police brutality. Still, we don’t see a glimmer of hope in this dark period. The Beijing government violently destroy ‘one country, two systems’.”

Reading these words confirmed what I already knew very well, but they still broke my heart.

What brought even more tears to my eyes were these words: “You love this place much - you should belong to here as a Hongkonger ... I hope one day in future, Hong Kong will be liberated and become a free, dynamic and diversified city again ... At that time, I will sincerely invite you to come to Hong Kong and enjoy a cup of beer.”

I tweeted my response: “My reply to my unknown friend - if you see this - is this: Thank you for your beautiful, heartbreaking message. Be assured I will work for that day to come. And when it does, you and I will for sure have that cup of beer together!”

But better than a cup of beer, how about a Nobel Peace Prize?

It could be for the Hong Kong people as a whole, who have endured so much and shown such courage. Or it could be for a specific group – or groups – on their behalf. As Cohen suggests, “the Hong Kong Bar Association should be considered. Its barristers are the last line of legal defence for the city’s human rights”. This newspaper – Apple Daily – might be another candidate, or the free press – whatever remains of it – as a whole. Or a few individuals on behalf of the people. Or the pro-democracy candidates elected in the primaries but never able to contest their seats because the Legislative Council elections have been postponed by a regime scared of the voters. Or the district councillors elected last year in what was perhaps the last democratic ballot allowed in Hong Kong. In a sense it doesn’t matter who is the recipient. What matters is that Hong Kong is recognised.

There’s a third reason why this should be done, and it’s this. Wang Yi made a tactical error by threatening Norway and the Nobel Committee, and also by confusing the Norwegian government with the committee. In China, there’s no separation between government, Party and other institutions – the Chinese Communist Party controls them all. And, as Carrie Lam confirmed this week, there is no longer a separation of powers in Hong Kong’s new police state. But in the free world it doesn’t work like that, and we need to prove that point. No amount of threats, bullying and intimidation should prevent the Nobel Committee giving the prize to whomever they wish to. Indeed, all the more reason to give the prize to those whom Beijing fears.

So give the prize to Hong Kong in 2020. And to the Uyghurs in 2021. And the Tibetans in 2022. And Falun Gong and those who have exposed forced organ harvesting in 2023. And the Taiwanese for their vibrant democracy and exemplary handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2024. And Chinese Christians, human rights lawyers, bloggers, dissidents, citizen journalists and other voices of conscience in China in 2025. Not necessarily in this order. But for as long as the Chinese Communist Party continues to repress its people, attempts to silence its critics and threaten the free world, let’s keep on awarding the Nobel Prize to those who courageously stand against the butchers of Beijing.

And by the way, if anyone should think that proposing the Nobel Peace Prize violates the national security law, for provoking hatred against China or Hong Kong, nothing could be further from the truth. I propose giving this prize to Hongkongers, and to other people groups in China, precisely because I love them – and love Hong Kong and China. And such an award would be an expression of the free world’s love.

Benedict Rogers is the Co-founder and Chair of Hong Kong Watch. The article was published in Apple Daily on 4 September 2020. (Photo: Apple Daily)