China is pressing forward with new anti-dissent rules in Hong Kong, with little or no objection from the US and UK.
Under Hong Kong’s China-approved constitution, the China-appointed chief executive, tycoon Tung Chee Hwa, together with the rigged pro-China legislature, is about to introduce a set of “antisubversion” laws that would gut the liberties, such as free speech, on which Hong Kong depends. It would become a crime, punishable by time in prison, to disclose “state secrets” or damage Chinese state “security”–with Beijing or its local surrogates deciding, at their own convenience, what that means. This is a raw bid to extend into Hong Kong the same arbitrary dictates of absolute power, the same methods of intimidation backed by brute force, that the Communist Party wields in Beijing.
Shameful.
Now, granted, one could argue that playing nice with China is one of the costs (anticipated, or already discussed) for Beijing’s assistance in dealing with North Korea. And, as everyone has been pointing out over the last year, North Korea is a huge threat, a catastrophe waiting to happen, and one that may require even bigger doses of realpolitik to deal with.
Still, seeing Hong Kong dragged down to the prison-camp level of the rest of China is a damned shame, and will be a source of justifiable criticism of Washington and London for decades to come.
Well…Short of war what can the U.S. and the UK do about it.
Really.
The reason that the UK returned Hong Kong to the Main Land’s controlin the first place was because Thatcher saw that she could do nothing to stop the Chinese Army. This has been building for the last several years…and it seems that nobody cares (including most of the folks living in Hong Kong) as long as they keep bringing in the big bucks.
Granted, the Chinese only have about 40 +/- 5 ICBM’s…
Granted that there’s little that the US and UK could do about materially — HK is not worth going to war over, and China is too big in the world economy to try to impose economic sanctions — they could certainly make noises about it diplomatically.
Gotta disagree, Dave. Whining when there’s nothing you can actually do is useless. Why act like France?
The Hong Kong folk with the money and the connections to establish boltholes in Canada and other countries were wise to do so. The thugs who rule China are incapable of not killing the goose that’s laying golden eggs, not if it needs some freedom to live.
I disagree. While I wouldn’t be whiny about it, or act like just because we disagree, China should be dazzled by our arguments and acquiesce, I think making it clear that we deplore their actions, and finding some sort of gesture to make that clear (hmmmm … any outstanding defense contracts with Taiwan pending?) is quite sensible.
Well, dealing with the outstanding Taiwan defense contracts would be a sure way of eliminating Taiwan’s future.