Freedom Extinguished in Hong Kong

Beijing came for the students, then the teachers, businessmen, and local politicians. Pretty soon no one was left to speak out….

Is this to be Hong Kong’s fate?

Since Beijing’s enactment of the new national security law in June Hong Kong residents have seen an increasingly rapid deterioration of their freedoms. New government rules and regulations pushed through by the CCP in Beijing have effectively stifled all civil dissent. Those who protest or oppose China’s interference are arrested for daring to oppose the will of the overlords in Beijing.

In a further ramping up of pressure on the opposition in Hong Kong this week there were three separate pre-dawn raids with arrests. On Wednesday, the authorities came for Ted Hui, Raymond Chan, and Eddie Chu. The former Hong Kong legislators were charged with protesting against a Beijing-supported measure banning any criticism of the national anthem. So much for free speech or any of the other so-called “guarantees” China made in 1997 when Great Britain transferred the territory back to China.

Last week several opposition members in the Legislative Council’s resigned after passage of a new “loyalty requirement” for lawmakers. The new law was immediately implemented to effectively oust the four who opposed Beijing’s interference in the Hong Kong lawmaking body.

To put it in perspective… China ranks #124 in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World. It’s not free by Western standards. Now it looks like that is happening in Hong Kong. There have been thousands of politically motivated arrests there over the last year related to demands for freedom. The heavy hand of the Chinese state, led by the CCP, overregulates the local economy and slows the real growth possible in a free market society. Hong Kong had a higher GDP per capita than Australia in 1997 when it was returned to China. Today Beijing is trying to impose its economic model on the once-flourishing Hong Kong business world without concern for human rights or economic promises made to the people of Hong Kong.

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After national security arrests late last month Hong Kong authorities said: “There is no justification for any so-called ‘political asylum’ for people in Hong Kong.” One group of 12 dissenters tried in August to flee in a speedboat to Taiwan but were caught by china’s Coast Guard. They remain detained in Shenzhen, China. The list of abuses against Hong Kong is long and growing every day.

The good news is that the Trump Administration is not standing by silently watching the people of Hong Kong lose their freedom. Last week Secretary of State Michael Pompeo released a statement saying “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong-based officials continue to dismantle the promised autonomy and freedoms of Hong Kong through politically motivated arrests. Today, the U.S. Department of State is designating four PRC and Hong Kong officials in connection with implementing the PRC-imposed National Security Law and threatening the peace, security, and autonomy of Hong Kong, pursuant to Executive Order 13936.”

Beijing came for the students, then the teachers, businessmen, and local politicians… There is no more time. The Western nations must speak out now before there is no one left. As Secretary Pompeo said last week: “We don’t simply discuss human rights in the United States; we cherish and defend them.”

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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