International Duty of Interference to Save Hong Kong

Trump expected to sign Hong Kong bill after it clears House, Senate

By Danielle Wallace

President Trump is expected to sign a bill aimed at protecting human rights in Hong Kong amid an escalating pro-democracy movement in the semiautonomous city after the legislation cleared both chambers of Congress this week, with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed in the House Wednesday by a 417-1 vote. 

The proposed legislation was unanimously approved in the Senate on Tuesday. 

The bill gained support in recent days as police tightened their siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where hundreds of young protesters remained holed up trying to evade arrest.
“Today, the Congress is sending an unmistakable message to the world that the United States stands in solidarity with freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, and we fully support their fight for freedom,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during the bill’s consideration, according to Politico.
Florida’s GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who first introduced the Senate’s version of the bill in June, asked President Trump on Wednesday to sign the proposed legislation after the House vote.
“The U.S. House has just passed our #HongKongHumanRightsandDemocracyAct. It’s now headed just an @Potus signature away from becoming law. A powerful moment in which a united, bipartisan coalition made it clear that we #StandWithHongKong,” Rubio said on Twitter.


Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
The U.S. House has just passed our #HongKongHumanRightsandDemocracyAct.
It’s now headed just an @Potus signature away from becoming law. A powerful moment in which a united, bipartisan coalition made it clear that we #StandWithHongKong13.8K
11:18 PM - Nov 20, 2019

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would require the secretary of state to certify at least once a year that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy in order to retain special trade status under U.S. law, something which allows the city to thrive as a world financial hub. 

Under the proposed legislation, President Trump would be responsible for imposing sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials who commit human rights violations against protesters in the city.
The White House has not commented on the bill. 

Its passage comes as Trump tries to negotiate a trade deal with China amid his bid for reelection in 2020. 

Trump told reporters on Wednesday he would be content continuing to accept the tariffs on $350 billion worth of Chinese goods if a deal couldn’t be reached, according to Politico.
“We continue to talk to China. China wants to make a deal. The question is: Do I want to make a deal? Because I like what’s happening right now. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang slammed the U.S. for challenging its sovereignty over Hong Kong after the bill first cleared the Senate on Tuesday.

The legislation passed in the House despite China’s warning. 

China assumed control of the former British colony in 1997 but promised to let Hong Kong retain a high-level of autonomy.

“Today, it is beyond question that China has utterly broken that promise,” Pelosi said. 

“America has been watching for years as the people of Hong Kong have been increasingly denied their full autonomy and faced with a cruel crackdown on their freedoms and an escalation of violence.”
She added that recent escalations in violence in Hong Kong – which saw protesters use gasoline bombs and bows and arrows to fend off police backed by armored cars and water cannons -- “have shocked the world as unconscionable and unacceptable.”
The House and Senate this week both unanimously passed a second bill that aims to ban American companies from exporting crowd control munitions to Hong Kong police, Politico reported

Hong Kong Uprising

‘We are in a war’

In Hong Kong, an accountant by day becomes street fighter by night
By Shibani Mahtani

HONG KONG — The six friends, then in their early 20s, met on an online messaging board where they traded advice on stocks and investing. 

Their bond grew as they pursued careers and dreams, securing white-collar jobs, girlfriends and wives.
A decade on, they now swap notes on the most effective concoctions for molotov cocktails. 

Rather than scouring Hong Kong for the best bubble tea and hot pot, they compare brands of respirators and helmets.
The group’s members — accountants and a legal aide among them — consider themselves foot soldiers in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, now into their sixth month, with tactics growing more violent among police and, in turn, among the demonstrators. 

Clashes took another menacing turn this week.
On Tuesday, fierce encounters between riot police and black-clad protesters gripped the Chinese University of Hong Kong as part of wider violence across the city. 

A day earlier, a protester was shot in the abdomen by police and critically injured, while a man was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire after a confrontation with pro-democracy protesters.
Amid the chaos, these six young men are being pulled along the same trajectory: increasingly supporting, and wielding, harsher methods of dissent.
“We have started to realize we need to arm ourselves. We are in a war — there is no other choice,” said Kelvin, a 33-year-old accountant, who like the others in the group provided one name for fear of official retribution. 

“We can’t just be sitting ducks anymore.”
This cohort’s political evolution demonstrates the breadth of anger in Hong Kong. 

Where previous upwellings of public fury were often led by students, the authorities now face a scenario where regular office workers with stable jobs and promising careers have been loosed on a path to radicalization.
Violence has become commonplace at protests. 

Attacks on symbols of the state have expanded; businesses supporting the Chinese Communist Party have been vandalized. 

Protesters have thrown gasoline bombs at police stations and assaulted officers. 

Police say they have discovered crude explosives, though no one has been hurt by these so far.
Hundreds of thousands still demonstrate peacefully, despite the harder-line provocateurs in their midst. 

Residents shelter protesters fleeing from police operations. 

A recent survey by a polling center at the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that almost half the respondents saw nothing wrong with protesters’ actions. 

Only 1.6 percent found attacking the police unacceptable.
As Hong Kong’s government, led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, oversees an intensifying crackdown, experts say, more people will turn to violence to achieve their goals.
Hong Kong’s officials “and their Beijing bosses have all condemned violent protests as if the moral high ground belongs to them,” wrote Michael Chugani, a television host usually known for pro-government views.
“It doesn’t,” he continued. 

“The moral high ground belongs to the protesters. They were forced into using violence after Lam ignored their peaceful voice.”
A turning pointThe six friends grew up understanding how large, peaceful rallies could effect change. 

Some of their families participated in huge marches in 2003 that forced the Hong Kong government to shelve plans to introduce sedition laws. 

In 2014, when thousands occupied the streets seeking direct elections in Hong Kong, the families were among the “wo, lei, fei” — the peaceful, rational and nonviolent protesters that formed the movement’s core and who opposed radical actions.
“In my heart, I knew the protests were useless in dealing with the Hong Kong government,” Samson, 32, said of the 2014 protests. 

He said it was becoming clear that the city’s government responded only to Beijing, rather than the people of Hong Kong. 

“But I continued my responsibility as a Hong Konger, and I continued to join in the protests.”
After 79 days, the street occupation was cleared, failing in its goal. 

The group of friends returned to their lives and careers.
Then came the call on June 9 to protest a now-withdrawn government proposal to allow extraditions to mainland China. 

Organizers estimated that over a million people turned out.
When Samson returned home, he feared that it would be a repeat of 2014 — another mass rally of marching and chanting that failed to achieve anything.
“I hoped that the next time, I could do more,” he said. 

“Not just complete a march and that’s it.”
The next opportunity came June 12, when thousands of protesters took to the streets around the legislative complex to disrupt a debate on the extradition bill. 

Several of the friends took a half-day off, leaving their air-conditioned offices to deliver face masks and water to front-line protesters who built barricades to hold back riot officers.
Police responded with then-rare force, including tear gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds.
“It was our most angry day,” said Kelvin. 

“For me, that was the turning point. Immediately, it was clear that the authorities would treat us differently than 2014, and so we had to respond differently.”
It wasn’t until July 21, when suspected members of organized-crime gangs assaulted protesters at a subway station, that the friends started gearing up. 

Kelvin procured knee and arm pads, a half-face respirator and helmets.
Ryan, a 28-year-old legal assistant, purchased respirators along with a hiking stick and helmets.
“I thought, if that day comes again, to protect myself and my friends, I would use violence against pro-Beijing gangsters,” he said. 

“If I don’t protect myself, I may get killed.”
Samson added: “I’ve thought about if I were one of the victims on July 21. If I didn’t have any gear, I would’ve been hurt and unable to protect my friends.”

Escalating action

At protests, the self-described nerds enlist the help of Steven, a 33-year-old construction worker. When masked front-line protesters dismantle metal barricades, dig out bricks and find other ways to hold back riot police, Steven is there with an array of tools, ready to provide expert help.
He buys lighter fluid and electrical oil to douse floors of subway stations. 

The liquids serve a dual purpose: to vandalize the subway, whose operator is supporting Beijing, and to slow police who use the trains to get around on protest days, when the network is often closed to the public.
Steven sometimes gets frustrated with his bookish crew, whom he affectionately calls the “suit guys.”
“I don’t know if they just don’t get it or they have short memories,” he said. 

“But sometimes when I ask them to loosen a bolt or a screw, they’ll drill it the opposite way and make it tighter instead. They’ve screwed up a lot.”
Some in the team have developed their own niches. 

Kelvin, who is married, heads to the library to scour chemistry books for the best molotov cocktail recipes. 

When the first gasoline bombs were unleashed in July, he thought the flames were small and unimpressive. 

He wanted to make them more effective and share his knowledge with front-line protesters.

“Nowadays, you can see the huge flames and think, ‘Whoa, how amazing,’ ” he said, noting that “it isn’t an offensive tool to burn things, it is a barrier that allows our teammates to retreat.”
“The aim is not violence for violence’s sake, but to protect ourselves,” he said.

‘Something exceptional is happening’

For a global financial center with a low crime rate, the path that Hong Kong is now on is highly unusual and bucks the conventional wisdom that violent protests dampen support for social movements, sociologists say.
“This is an extremely unusual case — it seems like something exceptional is happening here,” said Robb Willer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University who found, in the context of white-nationalist rallies and anti-racist counterrallies, that violent protests tend to backfire.
He added that violent protests are likely to be more acceptable in settings where there is a “high level of support” for the cause, and where the violence from the “other side” is seen as worse.
The poll from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, conducted between Oct. 8 and Oct. 14, showed that almost 70 percent of respondents believe police have used excessive violence, compared with 40 percent who believe protesters are too violent.
“There is a much stronger concern about the police’s excessive use of force,” said Benjamin ­Cheung, a lecturer in the department of psychology at the University of British Columbia who analyzed the survey and its methodology. 

“In fact, there has been a small but significant shift in the direction of great public support for abandoning nonviolence as a tactic.”
The group of friends, and other more-radical front-line protesters, say the battles are just beginning. Protesters are adopting guerrilla-style tactics, they say, in which groups carry out destruction in their own neighborhoods and quickly return home, avoiding arrest. 

Some have begun conditioning for battle by practicing sprints at the gym, taking up martial arts and improving their throwing accuracy.

Hong Kong Uprising Poses a Threat to China’s Legitimacy

An unintended consequence of the current unrest in Hong Kong has been to derail Xi Jinping’s proposal to use the “one country, two systems” formula to settle the Taiwan issue.

by Dennis P. Halpin


In December 2004, the Heritage Foundation’s Hong Kong office hosted a speech by Henry Hyde, Chairman of the then-named House International Relations Committee (now the Foreign Affairs Committee.) 

 Hyde, a veteran of World War II who fought in the battle for the Philippines, had an abiding personal interest in post-war political developments in Asia, including the challenges posed by a rising China. In his remarks, he saw political developments in Hong Kong as a key test as to whether Beijing would emerge as a responsible stakeholder or, alternatively, an authoritarian threat in the 21st Century.
Speaking of Hong Kong, he said: “Many years ago, those laboring in mines deep underground, faced the deadly problem of the buildup of fatal but undetectable gases. To warn them of approaching danger, they would bring with them a small and fragile bird, imprisoned in a cage, which became known as the miners’ canary… Hong Kong is the miners’ canary. Its vulnerability makes it an unmistakable indicator of the course of China’s historic transition and the impact it will soon have on us all. We must watch carefully.”
Hyde died in 2007. 

 Yet his words of caution remain relevant for Americans today. 

These include Donald Trump who, according to a CNN report on October 4th, made another questionable promise on Hong Kong in one of his now-famous phone calls to global leaders: “During a private phone call in June, Trump promised Chinese dictator Xi Jinping that the US would remain quiet on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong while trade talks continued.” 

 CNN further reported that the State Department told then-U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong, Kurt Tong, “to cancel a planned speech on the protests in Washington because the President had promised Xi no one from the administration would talk about the issue.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and NBA star LeBron James should also take heed. 

Their concerns for human rights and the rule of law are blinded by what Chairman Hyde called in his 2004 speech “the fool’s gold of pure selfishness” – in this case, the glitter of Chinese gold.

Zuckerberg, seeking a breakthrough for Facebook in China after it was blocked in 2009, bought several copies of China strongman Xi Jinping’s book on governance in 2014, so that “he and (his) colleagues could learn about socialism with Chinese characteristics,” according to a December 9, 2014 article in the South China Morning Post. 

And LeBron James more recently got caught in the awkward position of appearing to excuse Beijing’s current crackdown in Hong Kong in some ill-advised online comments. 

This happened soon after a high school student protester was shot in the chest by police on China’s National Day, October 1st, in an eerie echo of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and prior to a leader of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement being hospitalized after an assault on the street by thugs with hammers. 

Commenting on LeBron James’s remarks, one disappointed Hong Kong protester told the Associated Press on October 15th: “Please remember, all NBA players, what you said before: ‘Black lives matter.’ Hong Kong lives also matter.” 

Perhaps all three -- Trump, Zuckerberg, and James -- need to take their quotes more from Chairman Hyde and a little less from Chairman Mao.
The spin doctors in Beijing did not care very much for what Hyde had to say in his speech. 

UPI reported on December 6, 2004 that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Hyde had “viciously attacked China’s development and progress, and insulted China’s foreign policy from his own Cold World view.”
So, what exactly did Hyde say about Hong Kong back in 2004 that drew such ire from Beijing? 

 Hyde noted that “in sharp contrast with Taiwan, where political reform and liberalization enjoyed sustained government sponsorship, in Hong Kong the push has had to come from the people themselves, with the government actively attempting to slow or stop altogether any further advance. I am certain that the standoff that has arisen is dispiriting to many here, especially as the prospects for further progress remain uncertain… Clearly, the commitment to democracy has already sunk deep roots.”
If the situation looked uncertain back in 2004, it looks downright gloomy in 2019. 

Reuters reported on September 30th that “last month, Beijing moved thousands of troops across the border into this restive city. 

They came in on trucks, and armored cars, by bus and by ship. 

“ Three diplomatic envoys told Reuters that “the contingent of Chinese military personnel in Hong Kong had more than doubled in size since the protests began. They estimate the number of military personnel is now between 10,000 and 12,000, up from 3,000 to 5,000 in the months before the reinforcement. As a result, the envoys believe, China has now assembled its largest-ever active force of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops and other anti-riot personnel and equipment in Hong Kong.”
Chairman Hyde foresaw this coming, as he remarked that “Hong Kong has become an arena for an unavoidable struggle, one with global implications, where rival forces are locked in a battle to determine which of their visions for China’s political evolution will prevail... If we assume that chaos or repression are unacceptable outcomes to both sides, the question becomes: Is there a route by which Hong Kong can become increasingly free and democratic without challenging the regime’s ultimate authority and thereby provoking a forcible response?” 

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping seemed to answer Hyde’s question in the negative during a recent trip to Nepal. 

In the face of the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong, Xi warned that any effort to split China will result in “bodies smashed and bones ground into powder,” according to Hong Kong Free Press. 

 Hyde concluded at the end of his speech, if the repression of civil liberties in Hong Kong was China’s response, that “enamored of an aggressive and intoxicating nationalism, it would soon wreak havoc on the world.”
One result of the current political crisis in Hong Kong has been the exposure of Beijing’s formula of “one country, two systems” as a fraud. 

Beijing has been steadily seeking to undermine this pledge made at the time of the 1997 reversion of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule.Under the Basic Law, based upon the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, Hong Kong was to be a special administrative region (SAR) with its own capitalist economic system, its own currency, its own legal and legislative system, and a guarantee of the people of Hong Kong’s rights for fifty years. Yet Beijing and its surrogates in Hong Kong have sought to erode these guarantees by such means as the 2003 controversy over the since withdrawn national security measures contained in Article 23 of the Basic Law, the use of Hong Kong immigration to restrict entry of human rights critics of the Beijing regime, and the kidnapping of Hong Kong sellers of books banned in mainland China.
According to a New York Times article of April 3, 2018, “At a national Communist Party congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping made clear the party’s expansive vision of control. ‘The party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country,’ he told delegates. No corner of society was out of reach. Even books — ‘socialist literature,’ in Xi’s words — must extol ‘our party, our country, our people and our heroes.’”
Then there was the attempt by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, which triggered the current unrest, to ram through the Legislative Council a new extradition bill earlier this year (since withdrawn) which would make both the citizens of Hong Kong and visitors subject to the long reach of Chinese security forces. 

 The people of Hong Kong decided it was time to either stand up or fatalistically submit to creeping authoritarianism.
Another unintended consequence of the current unrest in Hong Kong has been to completely derail Xi Jinping’s proposal to use the “one country, two systems” formula to settle the Taiwan issue. 

 In remarks made at the beginning of 2019, Xi said that unification was the key to “national rejuvenation,” according to the South China Morning Post. 

“The political division across the strait cannot be passed from generation to generation,” he added. 

 Xi proposed the “one country, two systems” formula for Taiwan. 

However, the people in Taiwan have been watching very closely the current political struggles of their Hong Kong cousins and, as a result, see “one country, two systems” as the equivalent of the spider inviting the fly into its web.
A further unintended consequence has been placing Hong Kong’s special status in U.S. legislation as a separate customs area with special trading status distinct from China at risk. 

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in a report to Congress last year, noted that Beijing’s “encroachment” on the city’s political system could diminish its standing as a global business hub and affect the export of American technology to the city. 

The report recommended an assessment of the export control policy on technology “as it relates to U.S. treatment of Hong Kong and China as separate customs areas.”
The recent passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by the U.S. House of Representatives drew threats of unspecified “strong countermeasures” from Beijing if enacted by the entire Congress, according to an October 16th Bloomberg report. 

The Act subjects Hong Kong’s “special U.S. trading status to annual review and provides sanctions against officials deemed responsible for undermining its ‘fundamental freedoms and autonomy.’”

Xi Jinping’s “broken bones” remark seems to answer Chairman Hyde’s question on the future for both Hong Kong and China -- the specter of authoritarianism and repression is in the air. 

 Hyde said back in 2004 to his Hong Kong audience that “I can assure you that the U.S. Congress will never abandon its commitment to the freedom and prosperity of Hong Kong nor fail to ensure that this remains a prism through which our relations with China as a whole are viewed.” 

 Hyde’s old colleagues in the House seem to be heeding his admonition of fifteen years ago to “watch carefully” the events unfolding in Hong Kong both for their human rights implications and for their indication of the aspirations of a rising China.

Hong Kong Uprising

The violent Hong Kong authorities have lost their legitimacy 
Financial Times

Public execution, Tiananmen style: Hong Kong police cold-bloodedly shoots a young protester with a live round.


Hong Kong is on the edge of a precipice.
Late into Tuesday evening, protesters at several locations hurled Molotov cocktails at police who fired back volleys of tear gas.
Since the weekend, a protester has been shot by police with a live round, and a man horrifically set alight after confronting demonstrators.
Violence that has been building for months has reached a critical pitch.
With neither side appearing ready to back down, the danger is now real of a tragedy on a far broader scale.
Blame for the current crisis must be laid primarily at the feet of the Hong Kong government and Beijing. 
Since the protests began in April, both have underestimated the demonstrators’ seriousness and resolve.
Concessions have been too little, too late.
Had Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, withdrawn the extradition bill that originally triggered the demonstrations when they were still peaceful mass marches, she might have defused the situation.
Instead, she initially only suspended the bill instead of cancelling it, and only after the first bloodshed.
This sent protesters a damaging message: that only violence brought results.
Continued mishandling of the crisis by the Hong Kong authorities has led to the loss of their legitimacy in the eyes of the population. 
In a sign of how sentiment has shifted, office workers in suits could be seen cheering black-clad demonstrators in full battle dress as they ran through the city’s central business district on Tuesday. Having lost popular legitimacy, the authorities have resorted instead to police rule. 
In the absence of any political resolution, the brutal police find themselves, invidiously, on the front lines, expected to govern what has become an ungovernable city through force.
Since they only have one set of tools, an inevitable cycle of escalation has set in.
The city no longer has a law and order problem, but a rule of law problem. 
Now there are signs that Beijing is preparing to take an even harder line.
Protesters fear further steps to erode the rights and freedoms Hong Kong has enjoyed since the end of British rule in 1997, which are guaranteed in the Basic Law that came into effect at the handover. Chinese officials have signalled a desire for legislative and education reforms in the city, including strengthening security legislation.
An article of the Basic Law said Hong Kong should enact laws to prohibit “treason, secession, sedition [or] subversion” against the central government.
But a move to implement that through a national security bill in 2003 was dropped after half a million people protested.
Any attempt to introduce a national security law now would be seen as a final straw by demonstrators.
If Beijing intends to push through such legislation, the only way it might succeed could be by also enacting another unfulfilled article of the Basic Law — which set the “ultimate aim” of choosing Hong Kong’s chief executive by universal suffrage.
This has become the biggest of the demonstrators’ five demands.
The chances appear slim indeed.
Granting the universal suffrage demand would risk making Beijing appear cowed by violence, and setting a precedent for other parts of China.
Yet, balanced with an eventual commitment to introduce a national security law in Hong Kong, it could in theory provide the framework for a visionary compromise.
It might be the only route left to a peaceful end to the protests — and to averting the ever-increasing danger of a bloody military intervention from the mainland.