Benedict Rogers: Saving Hong Kong
Twenty-three years ago, I flew out to Hong Kong as a fresh graduate, full of excitement about beginning my career in Asia. I arrived in Hong Kong—which has the marketing slogan ‘Asia’s world city’—just after the handover in 1997, and spent the first five years of Chinese rule working as a journalist.
It was from Hong Kong that I discovered a passion for Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. And it was in Hong Kong that I led campaigns for the human rights of others in the region. I founded a human rights organisation in Hong Kong in my spare time, took Hongkongers to visit the refugee camps on the Thailand-Myanmar border, held conferences on human rights in Asia, provided assistance to asylum seekers and led a large protest through the streets of Central and Wanchai districts against the atrocities immediately after the 1999 referendum in Timor-Leste. Hong Kong, when I lived there, was a hub for freedom in the region. I never imagined I would end up fighting for its freedoms.
When I left in 2002, ‘one country, two systems’—the principle on which Hong Kong was handed to China with a promise of a ‘high degree of autonomy’—was largely intact. It was not perfect, and as a journalist I could see subtle pressures on press freedom emerging, but on the whole the experiment was working.
Two days ago, that experiment died. Or, more accurately, was killed off by the Chinese Communist Party regime. At the opening night of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) gathering in Beijing, the regime announced its intention to introduce a national security law for Hong Kong.
In one blow, this proposal threatens Hong Kong’s freedoms and breaks China’s promises under the Sino-British Joint Declaration—an international legal treaty lodged at the United Nations. It marks a blatant disregard for the international rules-based order. And it entirely destroys Hong Kong’s autonomy. The mere act of announcing legislation in Beijing, via the NPC, renders Hong Kong’s Legislative Council irrelevant and leaves the promise of ‘Hong Kong people running Hong Kong’ in tatters.
Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, requires the Hong Kong government to introduce a national security law, but it emphasises that it should do so ‘on its own’, not via Beijing. In theory such a law in itself is not an issue; every country has a right to defend national security. The issue is the fact that it is now being implemented before universal suffrage, also promised in the Basic Law, is introduced and in a climate in which basic human rights and freedoms are already coming under increasing pressure.
Pro-democracy activists have been arrested for peaceful protests, press freedom is under attack, pro-democracy legislators and candidates have been disqualified from the legislature, booksellers have been abducted into the mainland, and foreign journalists and activists have been expelled—starting with myself in October 2017 and followed by the Financial Times Asia news editor Victor Mallet. Human Rights Watch’s executive director Kenneth Roth was denied entry. Mainland Chinese law has been imposed on Hong Kong soil at the high-speed rail terminus, resulting in the abduction, imprisonment and torture of a British Consulate-General employee, Simon Cheng. Extreme police brutality has escalated alarmingly and with total impunity.
With that backdrop, introducing a law that criminalises ‘subversion’, ‘secession’ and ‘colluding with foreign political forces’ threatens to hammer the final nails into the coffin of ‘one country, two systems’. With the Chinese Communist Party’s interpretation of these terms, it could result in repression of dissent of the kind we associate with mainland China but not, until now, Hong Kong, one of Asia’s most open cities.
Peaceful protest may become illegal. Press freedom may disappear completely. Religious freedom is called into question. And even Hongkongers briefing foreign parliamentarians about human rights violations or sharing information with human rights groups may be criminalised. Having been denied entry to Hong Kong on Beijing’s orders, my chances of ever returning to the city that was once my home will disappear under this new law. But more seriously, Hongkongers communicating with me and the organisation I founded, Hong Kong Watch, may be taking a big risk. As the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, says, it is ‘a comprehensive assault on the city’s autonomy, rule of law and fundamental freedoms’.
The international community, including democratic governments, civil society and individuals in Asia, must stand up and speak out for Hong Kong before it is too late. Hong Kong has been a regional hub for international media and civil society, as well as a vital global financial centre, but if the values that underpin that status—openness, transparency, freedom, the rule of law, autonomy—are eroded, its viability is called into question.
It is not far-fetched to say that the imposition of the national security law will be the death of Hong Kong. But I also believe in the possibility of resurrection. If the extraordinary courage of Hongkongers, on display over recent years and showing no sign of abating, is matched with a united, global determination to defend Hong Kong’s freedoms and way of life and uphold the promises made to Hong Kong by the signatories of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, then Hong Kong’s death is not inevitable. It could revive as the front line of freedom for the rest of us. But that requires us to do our part. If we don’t, it will die and our own freedoms will be more vulnerable as a result.
Benedict Rogers is the Chairman and Co-founder of Hong Kong Watch. This article was first published in Mekong Review on 23 May 2020.