Apple Daily: 'As the Orwellianization of Hong Kong continues, it is time to pray for China', Benedict Rogers

A week from this Sunday, which is the Feast of Pentecost for Christians worldwide, a Global Week of Prayer for China will begin. Initiated by Asia’s most senior Catholic cleric, Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo, as President of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, it is an expansion of an annual Day of Prayer for China established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, which takes place on May 24.

Despite his own country being plunged into the turmoil of a bloody coup, Cardinal Bo reminds us that humanity is inter-connected. In his statement in March, written as the streets in Yangon around his residence at St Mary’s Cathedral echoed with gunfire, Cardinal Bo says: “Many parts of the world are currently challenged, including my own country of Myanmar at this time, but in a spirit of solidarity it is right to focus not only on our own challenges but to pray also for others, in the clear knowledge that their well-being is closely linked to ours.”

Cardinal Bo calls for prayer for the protection of “all humanity” – and “therefore the dignity of each and every person in China.” In proposing this Week of Prayer, from May 23-30, he says he is “expressing my love for the peoples of China, my respect for their ancient civilization and extraordinary economic growth, and my hopes that as it continues to rise as a global power, it may become a force for good and a protector of the rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized in the world.”

God knows that China – and Hong Kong – need our prayers now more than ever. While the Chinese Communist Party has always been repressive, not since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 – and in some respects the Cultural Revolution – has the regime faced with such a litany of grave accusations.

Xi Jinping’s regime now stands accused by the Canadian, Dutch and British Parliaments and two US administrations, as well as a growing body of experts, of genocide against the Uyghurs. The persecution of Christians throughout mainland China is at its most intense in forty years. Repression in Tibet continues, as does the crackdown on Falun Gong, the elimination of any space for civil society or media and the barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.

And the dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms – and the Orwellianization of the city’s institutions – proceeds apace. This week we have seen nine ‘democracy’ books pulled from Hong Kong’s libraries, an Epoch Times journalist Leung Zen attacked with a baseball bat, the Chief Executive Carrie Lam launch an assault on foreign media and more than 40% of American Chamber of Commerce members saying, not surprisingly, that they plan to leave the city.

We have seen the Police Chief PK Tang warn that “fake news” or comments that “incite hatred and divide society” could breach the draconian National Security Law. No one has spread more fake news or incited more hatred and division in Hong Kong than Mrs Lam, her government and their puppet masters in Beijing. If the Commissioner of Police is looking for someone to arrest for inciting hatred and division, he should start with them.

And then there is the passage of the oath-taking bill. Not long ago, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council was a legislature, with vibrant debate and proper scrutiny. Even though Beijing has always had a built-in majority, there was at least some scope for accountability and revision. Not any more. The zombie chamber, a local replica of Beijing’s National People’s Congress, passed this bill by – surprise, surprise – 40 votes to 1. I salute the brave individual who dared to cast a vote against.

The oath-taking bill is an absurdity. On paper it requires a pledge of allegiance to the government and a vow to uphold the Basic Law – even though the government itself flouts Hong Kong’s Basic Law every day. Starry Lee, the chair of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) – a party name which could have been plucked from the pages of any dystopian novel – defended the bill by saying that public servants should not engage in behavior harmful to “one country, two systems”. Poor Starry Lee is starry-eyed about the Chinese Communist Party regime, which has already torn up “one country, two systems” and is running the city directly.

Unlike some apparatchiks, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Mainland and Constitutional Affairs, Erick Tsang, is at least brutally honest about the regime’s intentions. He says that you “cannot say you are patriotic but you do not love the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party or you do not respect it – this does not make sense.”

But Mr Tsang: government, Party and State are entirely different concepts. It is absolutely possible – and makes total sense – to be required to express loyalty to your people, city and country, without having to endorse, let alone ‘love’, the policies and behavior of a political party you may disagree with or a government you oppose. Indeed, it is what happens in any free society.

It is interesting that in Britain, the oath is specific but the understanding is broad. In Britain, elected Members of Parliament are required to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch. “I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God,” it says. Those of a more rabidly secular persuasion can take the “solemn affirmation”, instead of an oath, if they don’t wish to bring the divine into it: “I do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law.”

But unlike Hong Kong’s new oath, Britain’s contains little of any consequence in practice with regard to the particular person on the throne. The monarch is simply the symbol of the country, and the oath to the monarch is made regardless of how one feels about the Royal Family, but as a symbolic act of loyalty to one’s country.

A Member of Parliament can be an avowed republican, a passionate anti-monarchist, determined to abolish the monarchy, and some are – but by taking that oath they are committing themselves to the service of the country – which the sovereign embodies – regardless of what they feel about the institution of the monarchy. Admittedly this was an issue for Irish Republicans – Sinn Fein – who refused to take their seats because they could not take the oaths, while English republicans, such as the late Tony Banks, crossed their fingers behind their backs while taking the oath. Hong Kong public servants could adopt either of these approaches, as they see fit. Of course, a simple oath promising to exercise their public duties for the common good and including a disavowal of violence would be a significant improvement on an oath which requires robotic, slavish obedience and adulation of the Chinese Communist Party and its godlike leader. And either way, if anyone were to suggest in Britain that a Member of Parliament pledge “love” for the government or the Prime Minister or the party in power, the entire House of Commons would erupt in raucous laughter. You wouldn’t be able to get the government’s own backbenchers to take such an oath, let alone those of other parties.

So the idea that somehow a test of patriotism is how much you love your leaders is lunacy. Indeed, it is those who fight to defend the basic human rights and freedoms of the peoples of China – including Hong Kong – who are the real patriots, and those who subserviently and insouciantly kowtow to the dictators in Beijing and put the interests of the Chinese Communist Party, rather than the country, first, who are the real enemies of the state, the true subversives against the will of the people.

And so, back to the Global Week of Prayer. In response to Cardinal Bo’s call, a group of lay Christians from six continents, including prominent Catholic legislators such as US Congressman Chris Smith, British politician Lord Alton of Liverpool, Canadian Member of Parliament Garnett Genuis and Australian Parliamentarian Kevin Andrews, together with Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom Andrew Bennett, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Nina Shea, Ave Maria Law Professor Jane Adolphe, myself and numerous others, have come together to facilitate it. Last week we launched a website – www.GlobalPrayerforChina.org – which features resources for parishes and individuals, including up-to-date information, profiles of individual prisoners of conscience and pastoral resources for prayers and homilies.

Although Catholic-initiated, the Global Week of Prayer is by no means exclusive. Whatever religious background you are from, please adapt the principles and information to whatever is religiously and culturally appropriate for your community and join us. And if you are of no faith at all, you’re welcome too.

If you don’t pray, then just think, meditate, reflect, remember and speak out. The human rights catastrophe in China, increasingly engulfing Hong Kong too, is too important for anyone to ignore, especially when it won’t stop at China’s borders. Xi Jinping has already promised that China would build a “stable international order” by 2049, in which China’s “national rejuvenation” could be fully achieved. Xi wants China to not only play a part in global affairs, but to dictate the terms too.

So it affects us all, as Cardinal Bo has articulated, and so it is in all our interests – if we believe in freedom and human dignity – to pray and work for the great nation of China to truly rise up, as a nation and not an ideology, as a civilization and not a cabal, as a friend and not a threat. When that happens, everyone in China will readily and freely be able to be a proud, heartfelt patriot and be justifiably respected by the rest of the world for it.

Benedict Rogers is co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Apple Daily on 14 May 2021.