Benedict Rogers: Beijing Strangles Hong Kong Even Tighter

A new proposal would destroy any semblance of the city’s autonomy and its residents’ freedom.

With July’s national security law, China’s Communist Party dismantled Hong Kong’s freedoms and destroyed the “one country, two systems” principle. Now Beijing has announced it will go even further and impose “comprehensive governance” of Hong Kong in the next five years, effectively absorbing the territory into the mainland in violation of the international treaty it signed with Britain in 1984.

Led directly by Xi Jinping, the proposal forms part of China’s next five-year plan and would apply to Macau as well. It specifically threatens Hong Kong’s legal system, emphasizing the need to “implement the central government’s comprehensive jurisdiction over the two [cities], as well as their legal systems and enforcement mechanisms.” It highlights the regime’s wish to “boost Hong Kong and Macau compatriots’ sense of national identity and patriotism . . . as we resolutely prevent and curb external forces from interfering with the two cities’ affairs.”

Hong Kong’s freedoms have been steadily eroded over the past six years by a range of repressive laws and measures. Now Beijing’s wants to destroy any semblance of the island’s autonomy.

In practice, “comprehensive governance” means direct rule. Hong Kong would no longer be different from any mainland city. It could spell the end of democratic elections, a free press, freedom of expression, academic freedom, religious freedom, judicial independence and the rule of law. It could turn Hong Kong into a place of arbitrary detentions, disappearances, torture, forced televised confessions, slave labor, prison camps and executions. It could mean places of worship destroyed or closed, crosses torn down, portraits of Mr. Xi displayed in churches alongside or instead of religious symbols. Not even Hong Kongers’ body parts would be safe, given the regime’s track record of forced organ harvesting. It could make Hong Kong the new Tibet, the new Xinjiang.

The international community should make it clear to Beijing that any move toward direct rule would trigger swift and severe consequences, including the imposition of targeted sanctions. The free world should also work together to offer a lifeline to Hong Kongers who’d like to leave.

Let this be a wake-up call to those who say we must continue to engage China in good faith. The Chinese Communist Party has clearly demonstrated it will not hesitate to break its word, bully and intimidate to try to get its way. We must not tolerate this.

Whoever wins the election, America’s president must put responding to the erosion of freedom in Hong Kong at the top of his to-do list. Hong Kong has been the front line for the free world. That front line moved to Taiwan in July when the national security law took effect, and Taiwan is now in Mr. Xi’s sights. Failure to make it abundantly clear that Beijing’s most recent proposal will carry grave, long-term consequences would expose Taiwan to further threat—and that would move the front line of the fight for freedom even closer to home.

Benedict Rogers is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Wall Street Journal on 5 November 2020. (Photo: Ju Peng/ Associated Press via Wall Street Journal)