The ‘Infinity War’ in the Streets of Hong Kong

The rise of China threatens the free world. 
By Roger Cohen

Protests continued in Hong Kong through the Christmas holiday.

HONG KONG — Carrie Lam, the lame-duck Beijing-backed ruler of Hong Kong, is unhappy that Christmas has been “ruined by a group of reckless and selfish rioters.”
Joan Shang, who works in sustainable development and has joined the pro-democracy protests, takes a different view.
“It’s an ideological war and we are at the center of it,” she said of the near-seven-month campaign. Such struggles do not take a break for Santa.
I found Hong Kong, once home to the pragmatic apolitical pursuit of money, riven and shaken.
One consultant, who thinks the city is now “a base of subversion against the Chinese central government,” told me he’d arranged for his family to stay in New York because he does not want his teenage daughters breathing the “toxic air.”
He was not referring to tear gas, but to poisonous division.
Everything from co-op meetings to dinner conversation is charged with the tension between the “yellow” protesters’ camp and the “blue” Beijing bloc.
Dialogue is near nonexistent.
The yellow-blue ideological struggle pits Hong Kong’s rule of law against China’s “rule by law,” free societies against Xi Jinping’s intensifying surveillance-state autocracy.

Persistent Hong Kong protests threaten Xi Jinping’s authoritarian project.

The confrontation will not end soon.
To say the course of the 21st century hinges on this conflict’s outcome would be a stretch, but not an outlandish one. 
“This is the infinity war,” Joshua Wong, a prominent democracy activist, told me.
“When Xi says the ‘motherland,’ it leaves me flat,” Shang said over coffee.
“I have no ties to that country. We in Hong Kong are not an authoritarian society. Psychologically, China cannot understand young people prepared to hurt their own interests for democracy. To them it’s all about money.”
Newly acquired wealth and rapid development have been the glue of Chinese society in recent decades. 
Xi — concentrating power, abolishing term limits, extending technological tyranny — has left no doubt over his determination to prolong that cohesion through diktat.
The history of China has been marked by periods of unity followed by fracture.
Xi wants to put an end to that alternation.
His ruthless assertiveness has conjured that impossible thing: overwhelming bipartisan American congressional backing for a piece of legislation. 
Such was the support for the bill last month that authorizes sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights abuses in the city.
President Trump signed the bill reluctantly, but he signed.
China was furious.
The persistent Hong Kong protests threaten Xi’s authoritarian project.
The Chinese periphery looks frayed.
Taiwan, on the eve of elections next month, has taken note of the troubles in Hong Kong.
Unification on the basis of the chimera of “one country, two systems”?
No, thank you.
China has its red lines, and Hong Kong is treading close to them.
But the city is a special case; it’s dollars and oxygen.
Hong Kong affords mainland tycoons the ability to move “red capital” in and out. 
The city, the world’s third-largest financial center, provides access to international capital markets.
It even offers honest courts and judges.
And so China is likely to play a waiting game.
A second Tiananmen in Hong Kong would be a horrific gamble that perhaps only armed insurrection or an outright push for independence would provoke.
Gradual infiltration of the increasingly brutal Hong Kong police by mainland paramilitaries is an obvious alternative. 
But it’s not a solution.
Beijing’s dilemma is that “one country, two systems,” always an exercise in creative ambiguity, is broken.
The model, agreed upon for the British handover of sovereignty to China in 1997 and supposed to last until 2047, is now almost halfway through its putative life.
The limits of its internal contradictions have been reached.
It would have been one thing if China had moved in the liberal direction many expected; it’s quite another when Xi’s rule grows ever more repressive and an estimated one million Muslim Uighurs in China’s East Turkestan colony undergo Orwellian re-education in camps.
“The problem is the idea of a half-century of no change begins to feel like handcuffs,” Teresa Ma, a Hong Kong lawyer and mediator, told me.
“Our society has evolved, but our government is utterly unresponsive.”
Hong Kong’s restiveness has many roots: rising inequality, unaffordable housing, diminishing prospects for young people, dithering governance, a sense of marginalization as China rose.
The city represents 2.7 percent of Chinese gross domestic product today, compared with 18.4 percent in 1997.
Shenzhen, just over the border, was a cow town three decades ago; now it glistens and gleams, a high-tech hub.
Freedom versus repression is not the whole story of the protests.
Many frustrations have found an outlet in demonstrations that have turned violent at times.
But it is the essence of the story.
Only the tone-deaf insensitivity of Lam, the city’s chief executive, pushed Hong Kongers into open revolt in June.
Her administration’s proposal for an extradition bill would have meant game over for Hong Kong.
 This city knows as no other that the rule of law and an independent judiciary are the basis of its prosperity. 
Allowing "criminal" suspects to be sent into the one-party lawlessness of mainland China would have nixed that. 
“The spirit of the rule of law is in the blood of the Hong Kong people,” Benny Tai, an associate law professor at the University of Hong Kong, told me.
That’s why millions poured into the streets.
The bill was withdrawn, but too late.
Pandora’s box had been opened.
The genie that emerged was called freedom.
Lam, according to an audio tape obtained by Reuters, has conceded that the bill was “very unwise.” Her life, she said, “has been turned upside down.”
She’s paralyzed.
But she can’t quit.
The last thing Xi wants is a precedent for massive street protests leading to the ouster of a leader.
The protesters have five demands, including an independent investigation of police brutality and an amnesty for the thousands arrested. 
But the most intractable is insistence on the election of the chief executive through universal suffrage — in other words, real Hong Kong democracy.
The Basic Law of 1997 calls for “universal suffrage” as an “ultimate aim,” but in “accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress,” and “upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”
Creative ambiguity, I said, otherwise known as an impenetrable verbal fudge.
This convoluted language worthy of a Soviet bureaucrat is fast withering into irrelevance. 
Lam was chosen by a 1,200-member election committee dominated by pro-Beijing factions.
That sure worked out well!
Wong, the 23-year-old democracy activist, put it bluntly: “The fundamental problem is that, from Beijing’s perspective, universal suffrage is not far from independence.”
Regina Ip, a Hong Kong legislator and a former secretary for security, thinks the fundamental problem lies elsewhere — in the maximalist demands of the protesters.
China, she told me, agreed to a “more democratic form of government in Hong Kong,” but “not a democracy as available to an independent political entity.”
The protests had morphed into “a serious attempt to overthrow the government and split Hong Kong from China.”
I don’t think the issue is independence.
The protests, largely leaderless, coordinated through social media, ranging from flash mobs in malls to massive marches, are the furious response of a frustrated population to Xi’s ominous repressive turn and Lam’s subservience to it.
Hong Kong’s culture has changed. Once intensely pragmatic, it is now intensely values-driven. 
That could happen one day on the mainland, too.
Millennials value values.
District council elections last month, in which democracy advocates took 87 percent of the seats, suggest where Hong Kong public opinion lies.
Impatience and irritation at the disruption of the protests in a business-driven city have grown, but are far from predominant.
Legislative elections next September are likely to reinforce the pro-democracy trend.
Tai, the law professor, was unsure whether to give me his card because the University of Hong Kong is trying to oust him over his role in the 2014 political protests and could succeed soon.
He spent a few months in prison this year after being convicted on public nuisance charges.
He is now out on bail.

Protesters in Hong Kong on Christmas Eve.

“Our fight for our rights will not end,” he told me.
“The rise of China is a threat to the free world and that is what Hong Kong is resisting.” 
The city is the avant-garde of a world awakening, with a mixture of anxiety and dismay, to the full implications of Chinese ascendancy.
The most significant, perhaps the only, foreign policy achievement of the Trump administration has been to get behind the Hong Kong protesters while pressuring Xi on trade and keeping channels open to the Chinese leader. 
This American pressure, which has made Trump popular in Hong Kong, must not relent.
Mike Bloomberg, who has said Xi “is not a dictator,” and Joe Biden, who has said China “is not competition for us,” should take another look.
Universal suffrage for Hong Kong is the only endgame I can see to the “one country, two systems” impasse, short of the People’s Liberation Army marching into the city and all hell breaking loose.

China is threatening autonomy of Hong Kong

Last British governor of region urges Foreign Office to object to Chinese remarks
By Patrick Wintour

Chris Patten receives the union flag after it was lowered for the last time in Hong Kong on 30 June 1997. 

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, has warned that China’s threat to overrule the Hong Kong judiciary represents a dramatic threat to the autonomy of the region and may damage its chances of remaining a thriving financial centre.
Patten called on the British government to speak out as soon as possible to express its concern at the Chinese remarks, which followed the overturning by Hong Kong courts of a ban on protesters wearing face masks, a move that infuriated Beijing.
China claimed that the compliance of Hong Kong’s laws with the Basic Law governing relations between Hong Kong and China could only be judged and decided by China’s Congress.
A spokesman for the National People’s Congress (NPC) legislative affairs commission said: “No other authority has the right to make judgments and decisions.”
Patten said in a letter to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab: “The Chinese statement was in complete breach of the Sino-British joint declaration, which states that: ‘The Hong Kong special administrative region will be vested with executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication.’” 

The declaration was partly negotiated by Patten.

He added: “The NPC’s statement could seriously undermine judicial independence and the rule of law in Hong Kong.“If the rule of law and autonomy are threatened, Hong Kong’s success as one of the world’s most important international financial and trading centres is at risk.”
Patten pointed out that in 1996, a year before the handover, the then prime minister, Sir John Major, had said that “if there were any suggestion of a breach of the joint declaration, we would have a duty to pursue every legal and other avenue available to us”.
The former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind also warned that the NPC statement was “a naked power grab by the central government from the Hong Kong judiciary, and is clearly in breach of both existing Hong Kong case law and the terms of the Sino-British joint declaration”.The British protests came as Republicans in Washington predicted that Donald Trump would sign a bill passed by Congress this week that could open the way to fresh sanctions by the US against 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.

Hong Kong’s Mask Ban Reveals Carrie Lam’s True Face

The city’s leader announced an emergency law to restore order. It was a deliberate provocation.

By Alan Leong Kah-kit

Protesters defied a new emergency law banning masks at public gatherings in Hong Kong on Saturday.

HONG KONG — This city has long prided herself on respecting the rule of law — the ultimate guarantee of Hong Kongers’ freedoms, human rights and way of life. 

It is one of the attributes that make Hong Kong stand apart from cities on the Chinese mainland. 

Our practice of common law, together with an independent judiciary served by high-caliber judges, has earned us the trust and the confidence of friends and trading partners all over the world. 

Our legal system’s predictability and its freedom from political interference guarantee that no one will fall victim to the arbitrary exercise of power by government authorities.
Or so it did. 

All of this changed last Friday when Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s besieged chief executive, unilaterally decided to invoke the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to prohibit face masks and other coverings at public gatherings. 

The new regulation — formally called the Prohibition on Face Covering Regulation and, more commonly, the face-mask ban — makes it a criminal offense punishable by one year of imprisonment for people to hide their faces in ways that prevent identification, even if they are participating in lawful meetings or marches.
Lam said the ban was designed to stop violence and restore order, but her move only added fuel to the fire. 

Thousands of people — in masks — took to the streets all weekend, even after service was suspended across the entire underground system. 

There were clashes with police. 

A 14-year-old was shot in the leg.
The ordinance is an archaic statute from 1922, when Hong Kong was a British colony and the acts of the city’s governor were regulated by the monarchy in Britain. 

Since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, it has had its own Constitution, the Basic Law, which is supposed to protect the city’s autonomy from China under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. 

Acts of the chief executive should be reviewed for compliance with the Basic Law.

• Article 39 provides that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will continue to apply in Hong Kong after 1997. 
• Article 73 vests the legislative power of Hong Kong in the Legislative Council. 
• Article 8 says that any laws previously in force that contravene the Basic Law cannot be maintained.

On Friday, Lam violated all of these provisions. 

To take one example: She usurped the lawmaking function of the Legislative Council by bypassing the council altogether. 

LegCo is scheduled to reconvene on Oct. 16; Lam could have waited until then to propose her ban as a bill. 

She now claims that her regulation is subject to “negative vetting” by LegCo, or vetting after the fact. Yet it should not have come into force until after it was reviewed by LegCo.
Lam announced the ban by fiat, and with that, Hong Kong has just moved one step closer to becoming an authoritarian regime, ruled at the executive’s pleasure without institutional or systemic safeguards. 

We are moving away from the rule of law toward rule by law.
The invocation of the emergency ordinance is unlawful, and so the face-mask ban should be deemed inherently void.
Lam knows this fact only too well, and she knows that she may yet lose any judicial review of the law’s constitutionality. 

So why did she do this? 

She is reported to have initially been reluctant to pass the measure. 

But then, suddenly, she passed it — just three days after returning from Beijing, where she attended celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Xi Jinping might well have given her the marching order. 

The Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) is haunted by the images of millions of peaceful marchers taking to the streets of Hong Kong to demand the freedom, the human rights protection, the rule of law and the preservation of Hong Kong’s way of life that they have been promised under the Basic Law but have been treacherously denied.
The authorities’ calculation seems to be that if masks are banned, future rallies will be smaller. 

Some protesters will not be deterred. 

But others — especially peaceful demonstrators who are civil servants and employees of government-funded NGOs, Chinese businesses or conglomerates that actively trade with China — will be reluctant to assemble or march. 

Already, the local airline Cathay Pacific has fired employees, including pilots, who had expressed sympathy on social media for the protest movement.
At the same time, the pushback by dedicated protesters this weekend was so predictable that it is impossible not to think that it, too, was a desired effect. 

The ban was also designed to provoke the more radical factions of the protest movement into escalating violence. 

Lam and the C.C.P. can then invoke any such deterioration, as well as, say, acts of arson — or even, some fear, crimes by agent provocateurs planted by the police — to call the movement a riot and its participants vandals.
One of their hopes is that more Hong Kongers may then distance themselves from the movement because of the increased social costs. 

Another is that the movement will lose some of the moral authority it seems to command with liberal democracies around the world.
A more sinister explanation is that further violence on the streets could become an excuse to impose a curfew, formally or de facto, and pass other extreme emergency regulations. 

Members of the major pro-government party are also said to worry about their prospects in the district council elections scheduled for late November: Chaos would be a convenient pretext to postpone or cancel those.
Legislators from the democratic camp have started a legal battle challenging Lam’s ordinance and are asking that it be reviewed judicially. 

The High Court refused this weekend to order an interim injunction to stop the ban from taking immediate effect but has said that the case could be heard in full before the end of October.
We already knew that “One Country, Two Systems” was dying; now we know that the rule of law is dying too.

Freedom Fighters

For Hong Kong’s Youth, Protests Are a Matter of Life and Death

By Mike Ives and Katherine Li

Protesting against the proposed extradition law in Hong Kong on Sunday.

HONG KONG — They are on the front lines of every demonstration, dressed in black T-shirts and pumping their fists as they march through Hong Kong’s sweltering streets.

They organize on encrypted messaging groups and hand out helmets and goggles at rallies. 

When the police fired tear gas at them, they chased the smoke-emitting canisters and doused them with water.
Hong Kong’s youth are at the forefront of protests this month that have thrown the city into a political crisis, including a vast rally on Sunday that was perhaps the largest in its history. 

Organizers contend that close to two million of the territory’s seven million people participated, calling on the government to withdraw proposed legislation that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
For the many high-school and university-age students who flooded the streets, the issue is much bigger than extradition alone. 

As they see it, they are fighting a “final battle” for some semblance of autonomy from the Chinese government.
“The extradition law is a danger to our lives,” said Zack Ho, 17, a high school student who helped organize a boycott of classes. 

“Once this passes, our rule of law would be damaged beyond repair.”
They are a generation that has no memory of life under British rule, but they have come of age amid growing fears about how the encroachment of China’s ruling Communist Party — and an influx of people from mainland China — are transforming Hong Kong and what they believe is special about it.
Such fears stem from the ousting of opposition lawmakers, the disappearance of several individuals from Hong Kong into custody in the mainland and the intensifying competition for jobs and housing in a city with soaring inequality. 

Many young protesters see the extradition bill as hurting the territory’s judicial independence — in their view, the last vestige of insulation they now have from Beijing’s influence.
Youth activism in Hong Kong had ebbed in recent years, after protests demanding a direct say in the election of the territory’s chief executive ended in failure in 2014. 

The most prominent leaders of what became known as the Umbrella Movement or Occupy Central were jailed, and their legions of young supporters were left bitterly disenchanted.

Joshua Wong, who became the face of the Umbrella Movement protests in 2014, was released from prison in Hong Kong on Monday.

But the extradition legislation pushed by Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has re-energized young people. 

Residents express worry that Beijing will use new extradition powers to target dissidents and others who run afoul of Communist Party officials on the mainland.
The young people driving the Umbrella Movement fought for the cause of universal suffrage, said Leung Yiu-ting, the student union president of Hong Kong Education University. 

But the extradition fight, he added, is “a matter of life and death.”
Compared with older generations, young people in Hong Kong feel less affinity with mainland China and are more likely to see themselves as having a distinct Hong Kong — as opposed to Chinese — identity. 

Beijing’s efforts to grapple with this have backfired; when officials tried to impose a patriotic education curriculum in schools in 2012, young people led the protests against it.
That was the beginning of this generation’s political awakening, which has accelerated along with the erosion of the civil liberties promised to Hong Kong upon its return to Chinese government in 1997. Those freedoms have long set Hong Kong apart from the mainland, and as they have begun to fray, young people say they feel the threat more sharply.
No one has emerged as the face of the current youth movement as Joshua Wong, then 17, did during the Umbrella protests five years ago. (Mr. Wong was released from prison Monday after serving a month of his two-month prison sentence.)
That is at least in part because of fear. 

“Who’s going to be quite so willing, openly, to take six years of jail as the prize for the protests?” said Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker, referring to a sentence handed down last year to Edward Leung, a local activist, for his role in a 2016 clash between protesters and the police.
Instead, organizers have operated behind the scenes by spreading messages about protests and other acts of civil disobedience through social media, word of mouth and secure messaging apps like Telegram.

Students taking part in a strike at Tamar Park in Hong Kong on Monday.

One result was that high schoolers and university students turned out in large numbers at a mostly peaceful march one week ago Sunday, and also occupied a highway on Wednesday outside the Legislative Council. 

Medical students and other volunteers provided first aid and free supplies from makeshift tents.
“They are compromising our future, and for what?” Terrence Leung, a recent college graduate, who like many others was demonstrating on Wednesday in a black T-shirt and a surgical mask, said of the pro-Beijing lawmakers who championed the extradition bill.
But in both protests, some among the young demonstrators challenged the authorities with force. 

The demonstrators tried to occupy the area outside the Legislative Council — or, in Wednesday’s case, tried to storm the complex — with force, pushing metal barriers and tossing bricks, bottles and sticks at riot police officers.
The police responded with pepper spray and batons. 

On Wednesday, police also fired 150 canisters of tear gas and, for the first time in decades, rubber bullets. 

Videos of officers beating protesters and firing volleys of tear gas that sent thousands fleeing drew wide condemnation across the city.
Public anger only grew when Lam compared her response to the opposition with that of a mother with a willful child.
Linda Wong, a barrister who organized a rally attended by women who described themselves as mothers opposed to how the police had responded to the young protesters, disagreed with Lam’s characterization.
“They came out not for personal interests but for the greater ideal of Hong Kong,” said Ms. Wong. “A good mother shall listen to her own child, and apparently Carrie Lam refuses to do so.”

A mass rally on Sunday. Organizers have spread messages about protests and other acts of civil disobedience through social media, word of mouth and secure messaging apps like Telegram.

The police said Monday that 32 people have been arrested since Wednesday’s event, including five for rioting.
“Fear is striking in all of our hearts,” said Mr. Leung, the student union president, referring to the possibility of being prosecuted.
Another risk is that the leaderless nature of the movement raises the possibility of more bloodshed. Analysts say that if demonstrations descend into violence, the authorities would have an easy excuse to prosecute young protesters, discredit them as radicals or attack them with a vengeance.
“If I were them, I would be cautious not to press the advantage too far,” said Andrew Junker, a sociologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who has studied the Umbrella Movement.
Faced with another enormous protest on Sunday, Lam issued a public apology for causing so much anger over the extradition law. 

Her apology came a day after she promised to shelve the plan indefinitely, but not withdraw it.
This was perceived as too little, too late, and it especially enraged younger protesters, who were bewildered that Lam seemed deaf to the concerns of more than a million demonstrators.
“Sometimes I think to myself, is it because I have not done enough? What else could have been done?” said So Hiu-ching, a 16-year-old high schooler who attended a student strike at a park near government offices on Monday morning.
“I go home and cry,” she said, “but after that, I have to get up and try to rally more people.”

China Is Courting Disaster in Hong Kong

The likely passage of Hong Kong's controversial extradition law will irrevocably tarnish the city's rule of law and its attractiveness as an international commercial hub. Unless China’s leaders are prepared to accept these disastrous consequences, they should withdraw the bill before it is too late.

By MINXIN PEI

WASHINGTON, DC – The world has been riveted by the protests raging in Hong Kong against the city government’s proposed law to allow the extradition of "criminal suspects" to mainland China. About one million people – roughly one-seventh of the former British colony’s population – took to the streets on June 9 to denounce the draft law, and another large protest on June 12 resulted in violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
Yet, despite the massive protests, the Chinese government is determined to get its way. 

Instead of withdrawing the proposed law, Hong Kong’s Beijing-controlled leaders have fast-tracked the bill and scheduled it for a vote in the city’s Legislative Council at the end of this month. 

Its adoption would be a calamity not only for Hong Kong, but also for China.
The proposed extradition law would violate China’s pledge to adhere to the model of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong. 

And by giving the authorities in Beijing a convenient legal tool to grab individuals deemed to be “enemies” of the Chinese state, the legislation would imperil the liberty of Hong Kong’s citizens – and that of foreigners residing there.
Although the draft law does not formally apply to political offenses, this will offer no protection in practice. 

Under the Chinese legal system – which is controlled by the Communist Party of China – the distinction between political offenses and conventional crimes is hopelessly blurred. 

Increasingly, in fact, the Chinese party-state persecutes human-rights activists by accusing them of criminal, not political, offenses. 

Common charges include “running an illegal business” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
If the proposed law is adopted, the mainland authorities will be able to arrest anyone in Hong Kong easily, by charging the target with an extraditable crime. 

Given the low threshold of proof – prosecutors would not need to provide evidence beyond probable cause – the protection against politically motivated extradition requests is frighteningly slim.
At the same time, however, China’s leaders should be aware that the outside world is watching current developments with great alarm. 

Unless the Chinese government backs down, the United States, in particular, will most likely take steps to make it pay dearly.
Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, Western governments have maintained special economic privileges to help bolster confidence in the city. 

In 1992, the US Congress passed the US-Hong Kong Policy Act, in order to continue treating the city as a separate entity from mainland China. 

The law grants Hong Kong economic and trading privileges, such as continued access to sensitive technologies and the free exchange of the US dollar with the Hong Kong dollar.
But such benefits are contingent upon China fulfilling its commitments under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, which set out the terms of the city’s future handover. 

Among other things, China pledged to maintain Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, freedom, and rule of law for 50 years.
The US-Hong Kong Policy Act has teeth to deter China from violating its commitments. 

In particular, it explicitly empowers the US president to issue an executive order suspending some or all of Hong Kong’s privileges if he or she determines that “Hong Kong is not sufficiently autonomous to justify treatment under a particular law of the United States.” 

In making such a determination, the president should consider “the terms, obligations, and expectations expressed in the Joint Declaration with respect to Hong Kong.”
Even a cursory reading of the US-Hong Kong Policy Act should make it clear to China’s leaders that their actions in recent years have already seriously jeopardized the city’s status as an autonomous entity. 

Such actions include the abduction of five Hong Kong-based book publishers, the disqualification on dubious grounds of democratically elected city legislators, and the imprisonment of pro-democracy activists. 

For the US, the passage of the extradition law could well be the last straw.
The unfolding confrontation between China’s leaders and Hong Kong’s citizens will provide fresh ammunition to US hardliners who have been advocating an aggressive stance against the Chinese government. 

Revoking Hong Kong’s privileges would advance that goal, because it would significantly hurt China.
After all, as the Sino-American economic cold war escalates, and rising regulatory and legislative hurdles make it harder for Chinese companies to raise capital in the US, Hong Kong will become immensely valuable to China as an offshore financial center. 

But if the US decides to withdraw Hong Kong’s privileges on the grounds that Chinese actions no longer justify treating it as a separate entity, the city’s value as a financial center will be fatally impaired. 

China’s companies will have less access to capital, and the valuations of Chinese state-owned enterprises listed on Hong Kong’s stock exchange will fall.
Even if the US does not take this punitive step, China will reap what it has sowed. 

The likely passage of the extradition law will irrevocably tarnish the rule of law in Hong Kong and its attractiveness as an international commercial hub. 

Unless China’s leaders are prepared to accept these disastrous consequences, they should withdraw the bill before it is too late.

Chinese Entrepreneur Takes On the System, and Drops Out of Sight

By Chris Buckley

Zhao Faqi, 52, hoped to strike it rich when in 2003 he signed a government contract for coal exploration rights. Then the government tore up the deal. He fought back, and now he has vanished.

YULIN, China — For months, Zhao Faqi was a folk hero for entrepreneurs in China — an investor who fought the government in court and online, and against the odds, seemed poised to win.

He accused officials of stealing his rights to coal-rich land, and ignited a furor by accusing China’s most powerful judge of corruption.
Now, Mr. Zhao has dropped out of sight — and the authorities want to erase his story.
For much of the winter, Mr. Zhao’s case was the subject of avid discussion on Chinese social media, and his supporters saw it as a test of whether the Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, would support the troubled private sector against grasping officials.
Now, as the Communist Party-controlled legislature gathers for its annual meeting in Beijing, it seems the authorities have decided that investors like Mr. Zhao spell trouble.
The state news media has painted him as a cunning schemer. 

A judge who supported his case was paraded on television. 

A crusading former talk show host who helped bring the case to light has fallen silent.
Mr. Zhao’s arc from self-declared victim to officially designated villain has been dramatic even for China, where the party controls the courts and businesspeople can abruptly fall from grace. 

Mr. Zhao’s disappearance is a demonstration of the hazards that entrepreneurs face in taking on powerful Chinese officials.
“I’ve faced a lot of risks and pressure because of this lawsuit,” Mr. Zhao said in an interview in Beijing a few weeks before he disappeared. 

Chinese entrepreneurs, he said, yearned for the rule of law to replace arbitrary power. 

“You can’t say someone is protected one day, and take away protection the next day.”
Mr. Zhao drew support from liberal economists and lawyers who have been unsettled by Xi’s reverence for communist tradition and support for state-owned companies, which he has urged to grow “stronger, better and bigger.”

Xi Jinping had kindled expectations that he would be a friend of the private sector, but his talk of reform has often been drowned out by calls to strengthen government-led industry programs.

The gloom prompted Xi to publicly reassure the private sector at least three times in a month that the leadership remained committed to its success. 

In early November, he also took the rare step of admitting that the government had gone too far.
“It should be acknowledged that the private sector is experiencing difficulties that are real, and even quite severe,” Xi said at a meeting with more than 50 selected businesspeople. 

“Private businesses and businesspeople are one of us.”
Such reassurances may now mean little to Mr. Zhao.
A former soldier, Mr. Zhao went into business after quitting his job for a supplies company in 1991. He made his fortune as a construction contractor and later plowed his earnings into the mining investment.
Mr. Zhao, 52, was among the entrepreneurs who plunged into business after Deng Xiaoping, then China’s paramount leader, unleashed market overhauls. 

At the time, Mr. Zhao said, entrepreneurs were like famished goats set free from a pen and allowed to flourish.
“But we’re seeing this vitality steadily shrink,” he said.
Since 2005, he has been fighting for the right to explore more than 100 square miles of sandy, scrub-covered land on the fringe of Yulin, a coal-rich city in Shaanxi Province. 

After initial surveys indicated that the land was abundant in coal, the mining institute that had sold an 80 percent share of exploration rights to Mr. Zhao’s company canceled the contract, citing government orders.
Mr. Zhao waged a legal fight that took him all the way to China’s top court, the Supreme People’s Court.
His chances of victory seemed slim. 

In China, judges answer to the party. 

While courts have greater autonomy than before in business disputes, they often rule in favor of officials and their allies.

Zhou Qiang, chief justice and president of the Supreme People’s Court of China, bowing to Xi, second from right in the middle row, during a meeting of China’s legislature in Beijing last year.

Still, in late 2017, the Supreme People’s Court ruled that Mr. Zhao’s contract was valid.
But officials made no effort to enforce the ruling.
Then, late last year, something unusual happened.
Cui Yongyuan, a former Chinese television talk show host with a massive internet following, took up Mr. Zhao’s cause, fueling an uproar in the Chinese news media, which was largely sympathetic.
Mr. Cui said that files from the case had vanished from the Supreme People’s Court. 

He also revealed that a disgruntled judge on the court, Wang Linqing, claimed that China’s top judge, Zhou Qiang, tried to ensure that judges did not rule in Mr. Zhao’s favor.
Mr. Cui shared excerpts from interviews with Judge Wang on Sina Weibo, a social media service where he has nearly 20 million followers. 

The judge anxiously described how files from Mr. Zhao’s case had vanished from his office.
“This is something that I never imagined would happen,” Judge Wang said in one of the excerpts.
When the Supreme People’s Court acknowledged a problem and party investigators opened a high-level inquiry, Mr. Zhao was cautiously hopeful.
“It’s progress toward the rule of law,” Mr. Zhao said in an interview at the time. 

“But the outcome is unclear.”
Mr. Zhao was right to be cautious. 

Earlier this month, the government released the findings from the investigation, and they were damning for him and his supporters.

A disused mine entry on the disputed land on the rural fringe of Yulin, a coal-rich city in Shaanxi Province, where Mr. Zhao’s company had exploration rights.

The investigators said that Judge Wang himself had spirited away the missing case files. 

A report aired on official Chinese television showed him confessing that he had nursed grudges against more senior judges and tried to take revenge by stealing the files to create an embarrassing scandal.
“I offer my heartfelt apologies to the many internet users” who followed the case, Judge Wang said. “My behavior amounted to swindling their well-meaning hearts.”
Supporters said that they were worried that Mr. Zhao and Judge Wang’s real offense was rocking the political boat. 

They were especially shocked that Judge Wang was shown on television avowing himself guilty of breaking the law even before a formal investigation by the police, joining the ranks of dissidents and rights lawyers who have been forced to record scripted confessions while in detention.
“The official reports are full of problems, and the biggest one is how Judge Wang Linqing was made to confess on television,” said Sheng Hong, executive director of the Unirule Institute of Economics, a think tank in Beijing that backs market liberalization and previously held a forum about Mr. Zhao’s case.
Since the findings were released, Mr. Zhao’s phone has been turned off, and he appears to have gone into hiding or official custody. 

Judge Wang faces a criminal investigation and a likely prison sentence.
The supreme court, Ministry of Public Security and other government offices did not answer questions about whether Mr. Zhao was detained, and his family could not be reached. 

Zhou Qiang, the top judge whom Mr. Zhao accused of corruption, has attended the legislative meeting in Beijing, apparently unshaken by the accusations.
Still, Chinese lawyers have said online that the findings in the official report defied logic. 

Was it believable, they asked, that Judge Wang turned on his superiors because he did not want to do overtime one night, as the report had claimed? 

It also failed to address in detail Judge Wang’s claims of being repeatedly intimidated by senior judges, critics said online.
“From the viewpoint of common sense, many things about this are just hard to swallow,” said Liu Xiaoyuan, a human rights lawyer. 

“But it’s also shocking to think that a high-level investigation like this would just make all this up.”

Rogue Nation

China’s massive attack on human rights and the rule of law continues
The Washington Post

Li Wenzu, the wife of imprisoned lawyer Wang Quanzhang, reacts before an interview at her home in Beijing on Monday. 

ON JULY 9, 2015, China launched its war on lawyers. 

Over the course of a few weeks, some 300 lawyers, legal assistants and other advocates for the rule of law were rounded up. 

One of the most prominent, Wang Quanzhang, disappeared into secret detention on Aug. 3, 2015; after being held incommunicado for nearly 3½ years, he was the last to go on trial. 

On Monday, he was sentenced to 4½ years in prison on charges of subversion, putting a punctuation mark on one of the principal means of repression used by Xi Jinping to consolidate power.
Since taking office six years ago, Xi has employed corruption investigations to purge rivals in the Communist Party; stepped up censorship of social media; and conducted a massive campaign against Muslims in the East Turkestan colony, hundreds of thousands of whom have been confined to concentration camps and forced to undergo “reeducation.” 

Meanwhile, he has sought to stifle dissent by targeting the lawyers who defend human rights activists and religious believers or bring cases against local authorities for corruption.
Most of the lawyers and activists detained in what became known (for its July 9 date) as the 709 campaign were held for a few weeks; a number were later stripped of their licenses or driven out of business. 

But at least four besides Mr. Wang have been sentenced to prison. 

In August 2016, lawyer Zhou Shifeng and activist Hu Shigen were given terms of seven and 7½ years, respectively; in November 2017, lawyer Jiang Tianyong was sentenced to two years. 

The next month, human rights activist Wu Gan was handed an eight-year term.
Mr. Wang’s trial may have come last because of his refusal to buckle under pressure — including physical torture. 

While some lawyers signed confessions or publicly confessed to plotting against the government, Mr. Wang resisted to the end. 

When his closed trial was held on Dec. 26, he threw a wrench into the proceedings by firing his government-appointed lawyer.
His wife, Li Wenzu, bravely advocated on his behalf, speaking out about his treatment and shaving her head in protest of judges’ refusal to uphold Mr. Wang’s rights under Chinese law. 

She was prevented from attending his trial and denied visitation rights, along with seven lawyers appointed by the family. 

One of those lawyers, Yu Wensheng, has himself been detained incommunicado for more than a year, according to the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
The crackdown on lawyers has attracted some international attention and protests; the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Mr. Wang was being held arbitrarily and called for his release. 

For the most part, the Trump administration has been silent, as it is on most human rights issues involving China.

But the State Department issued a statement Tuesday calling for Mr. Wang’s release and expressing concern about “the deteriorating situation for the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms in China.” 

While that’s not likely to influence Xi, the United States should be heard on cases such as this. 

The courageous Chinese lawyers still attempting to enforce the rule of law deserve the support of the democratic world.

FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Remarks Regarding Indictments of Huawei and Wanzhou Meng

Christopher Wray

Good afternoon. 

The charges unsealed today are the result of years of investigative work conducted by the FBI and our law enforcement partners. 

Both sets of charges expose Huawei’s brazen and persistent actions to exploit American companies and financial institutions, and to threaten the free and fair global marketplace.
As you can tell from the number and magnitude of charges, Huawei and its senior executives repeatedly refused to respect the laws of the United States and standard international business practices. 

Huawei also intentionally and systematically sought to steal valuable intellectual property from an American company so it could circumvent hard-earned, time-consuming research and gain an unfair market advantage.
In pursuit of their commercial ambitions, Huawei relied on dishonest business practices that contradict the economic principles that have allowed American companies and the United States to thrive. 

There is no place for this criminal behavior in our country or any other committed to the rule of law.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, standing with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (left) and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, remarks on the charges against Huawei during a press conference today at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
The prosperity that drives our economic security is inherently linked to our national security. 

And the immense influence that the Chinese government holds over Chinese corporations like Huawei represents a threat to both.
As Americans, we should all be concerned by the potential for any company beholden to a foreign government—especially one that doesn’t share our values—to burrow into the American telecommunications market. 

That kind of access could give a foreign government the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, conduct undetected espionage, or exert pressure or control.
These cases make clear that, as a country, we must consider carefully the risk that companies like Huawei pose if we allow them into our telecommunications infrastructure.
Today’s charges serve as a warning that the FBI does not—and will not—tolerate businesses that violate our laws, obstruct our justice, and jeopardize our national security. 

We will not stand idly by while any entity—be it a foreign power or corporation—seeks to criminally or unfairly undermine our country’s place in the world.
This announcement would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of FBI personnel in our Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigative Divisions, and in our New York, Dallas, and Seattle Field Offices. 

I’m proud of their hard work rooting out pervasive criminal behavior by Huawei and its executives.
I’d also like to thank our law enforcement partners in Canada for their continued and invaluable assistance to the United States on law enforcement matters such as this.
And lastly, I want to extend our gratitude to our partners at the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security for their support in our broader efforts to defend our economic and national security. Thank you.

China smells weakness – so it’s picking on Canada

China is targeting Canada, and not the United States, because they see us as both weak and anxious for closer economic ties, an image reinforced by Ottawa’s previously fawning words for China.

By Brian Lee Crowley

Meng Wanzhou

The battle with China over the extradition case of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, is not one that Canada chose. 

It is increasingly clear, however, that it is one that we cannot afford to lose, since China evidently believes that Canada is the weak link in its global contest of wills with the West.
The case of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, Beijing’s latest thinly disguised effort to use the Chinese courts to up the pressure on Ottawa, has seriously escalated tensions. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decried the hasty retrial and death sentence for the Canadian accused of smuggling drugs as “arbitrary.” 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has responded by demanding that the Canadian government cease “such irresponsible remarks.” 

The two sides have traded travel advisories.
China has been known to give severe sentences for drug-related offences, even to foreigners – although it is notable that its tough-on-drug-crime approach does not extend to its own role in the domestic production and export of fentanyl, which has led to an opioid crisis in North America and beyond.

Yet, as with the detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, it would be farcical to believe China’s position – that they are just applying their own laws to foreign nationals, much as Canada is doing with Meng – given China’s long history of politicizing criminal trials for the benefit of the Communist Party regime.
Make no mistake: China is targeting Canada, and not the United States, because they see us as both weak and anxious for closer economic ties, an image reinforced by Ottawa’s previously fawning words for China.

If Canadians did not already understand the odious and thuggish nature of the regime that their government has been seeking to embrace on their behalf, Mr. Schellenberg’s case should dispel all doubts.
China respects strength, not weakness. 

In the interests of protecting Canadians and the rule of law within our own country, we must make it clear that we will not let such egregious offences go unanswered, and respond firmly to escalating provocations by the Chinese regime.
There are measures we can take immediately: the expulsion of the ambassador; the use of Magnitsky sanctions against specific members of the regime involved in this travesty; and a warming of our relations with Taiwan. 

Tightening visa restrictions could be considered, though punishing ordinary Chinese for the actions of the regime might be unpalatable.
We should also join most of our principal allies in rejecting Huawei’s role in our emerging 5G communications network, if for no reason other than as an effective expression of our determination to stand up for ourselves against China’s blackmail and intimidation. 

If Huawei was rightly viewed as a security threat when relations were more normal, allowing a firm required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party into the heart of Canada’s communications infrastructure, amid China’s acts of retaliation and aggression, should now be a non-starter.
But acting alone is not enough. 

We must engage our allies. 

If China’s bullying leads to consequences across its relations with the West, that will give the country pause. 

We should be especially clear that we expect Washington’s full support on this matter, since it was our response to the U.S. extradition request that resulted in Chinese action against Canada, and China fears American power. 

This, not backroom negotiations with China, holds the best hope for the safety of Canadians now threatened by Beijing.
The irony is that China’s aggressive actions against Canada are counterproductive. 

The extradition process for Meng is no rubber stamp. 

Our rule-of-law approach allows ministerial discretion to deny extradition on defined grounds.
In effect, China’s bullying behaviour threw away a chance for them to work with Canada to get us to use ministerial discretion appropriately. 

Instead, they ripped aside the curtain and showed us the true nature of their Mafia-like regime where threats and intimidation, not reason and good-faith negotiation, are the preferred instruments of power.
While still in opposition, Trudeau raised eyebrows when he expressed “admiration” for how China’s “basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.”
Canadians have just been given an object lesson in how that “basic dictatorship” works. 

It’s not the economy, but rather the judicial system, that has turned on a dime at the behest of the Communist Party, to threaten the life of a Canadian in the hopes that we will abandon our commitment to the rule of law. 

That is the true nature of the Chinese regime. 

There is nothing to admire here – and much to oppose.

China’s Canadian Hostages

Chinese abuse human pawns in trade and diplomatic disputes
The New York Times

Chinese police officers patrolled in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing this month after a Canadian was detained on suspicion of “engaging in activities that harm China’s national security.”
Three Canadian citizens being detained by China appear to have become pawns in a political impasse between the two countries and, by extension, the United States. 

They should be released immediately.
China, already an aggressive rising power known to flout the rule of law and disregard human rights, now seems to be using hostage-taking to resolve economic and diplomatic disputes.human rights
Making matters worse, Trump has chosen to get involved, seemingly playing his own games to gain leverage in bitter trade talks with China.
Trump suggested that he might intervene to secure the release of a Chinese businesswoman arrested in Canada at the request of American authorities on Dec. 1 if it would lead to a favorable trade deal with Beijing.
That reinforced the suspicions of many in China who think that the United States is using the businesswoman, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the giant Chinese technology company Huawei, as a hostage, too.
As acknowledged by the Chinese government on Thursday, Beijing is now holding a “female Canadian citizen,” identified as Sarah McIver, in addition to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained earlier this month.
Although Mr. Kovrig is understood to have been seen once by a Canadian consular office, few details about the three Canadians, their conditions and the charges against them have been released. 

It is not unusual for prisoners detained by China to be held in solitary confinement with the lights on 24 hours a day and be subject to prolonged interrogation, even torture.
China’s legal system is opaque and weighted overwhelmingly in favor of the government and against the ordinary people who get caught up in it.
The Foreign Ministry said Ms. McIver had been working illegally, and it’s not clear that her case is related to that of the two others. Mr. Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat working for the International Crisis Group, a Washington nongovernmental research group, and Mr. Spavor, an entrepreneur specializing in business with North Korea, were reportedly being investigated over “activities that endanger China’s national security.”
Such moves are likely to chill the atmosphere in China for other diplomats and foreign businesspeople trying to work there.
But the detentions are less a function of the personal activities of the three Canadians than retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Meng. 

She was picked up in Vancouver at the request of the United States while she was traveling to Mexico from Hong Kong.
At a bail hearing, Canadian prosecutors said Meng was suspected of helping banks violate United States sanctions against Iran. 

She is now out on bail while awaiting extradition to the United States, a process that could take weeks or even months.
The arrests have drawn a sharp protest from the Chinese government, rattled financial markets and raised suspicions among Chinese officials that at least some Trump administration officials were trying to sabotage a trade deal.

Huawei and Meng, the daughter of the company’s founder, are part of China’s corporate elite, and her detention has brought huge domestic political pressure on Xi Jinping.
Global Times, a newspaper aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, said that the impasse could be resolved quickly by Canada’s dropping all charges against Meng. 

“It is quite simple to end the crisis between China and Canada by giving back Meng’s complete freedom,” the newspaper wrote, most likely echoing the views of top officials.
There is so far no evidence that Meng’s arrest is anything more than a part of the Trump administration’s enforcement of the sanctions regime against Iran.
But Trump recently gave doubters an opening when he suggested he would intervene with the Justice Department in the Huawei case if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing. 

The implication was that he might trade her for the two Canadians held at the time he made that statement.
“If I think it’s good for the country, if I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump told Reuters in an interview.
Such interference in a judicial process would undermine the rule of law and encourage countries to detain each other’s citizens as a weapon of economic and political warfare.

China’s Authoritarian Export

Beijing forces the expulsion of a reporter from Hong Kong.
Wall Street Journal

Financial Times Asia Editor Victor Mallet speaks at the Foreign Correspondents' Club luncheon in Hong Kong, Aug. 14. 

Hong Kong last week refused to renew the work visa of Financial Times Asia Editor Victor Mallet and gave him seven days to leave the territory. 

The unprecedented expulsion is the latest attack on civil liberties and the rule of law in the former British colony, which was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but with autonomy for 50 years.
The government won’t say why it expelled Mr. Mallet, but it appears to be part of a crackdown on young politicians who espouse independence or self-determination. 

On July 17 the government proposed using an anti-organized crime law to ban the Hong Kong National Party, a tiny group calling for independence from China. 

The Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club, with Mr. Mallet as acting president, invited the party’s founder to speak.
That touched off a tantrum. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry officials demanded the club cancel the event, and the Hong Kong government issued a statement that “providing a public platform for a speaker to openly advocate independence completely disregards Hong Kong’s constitutional duty to uphold national sovereignty. It is totally unacceptable and deeply regrettable.”
The FCC went ahead with the speech, which was legal, and Mr. Mallet introduced the speaker. Newspapers owned by Beijing poured vitriol on the club, and former Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying called for the FCC to be evicted from its rented premises in a government-owned building. 

The government then banned the National Party as a threat to national security.
Meanwhile, pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong are calling for new laws against subversion. 

The government last tried to pass such laws in 2003, when more than half a million protesters took to the streets. 

Local officials seem reluctant to refight that battle. 

But in January an electoral official disqualified a legislative candidate from Demosisto, a large opposition party that calls for self-determination but not independence.
Mr. Mallet’s expulsion is also an attack on Hong Kong’s tradition as a free-press redoubt in Asia. Journalists have used Hong Kong for decades as a base to report on China, confident that they could do so freely. 

Now China is barring a journalist for no more than providing a public forum for a dissenter.
The case shows that hardline Chinese officials who staff Beijing’s Liaison Office are calling the shots in Hong Kong. 

Xi Jinping’s authoritarian crackdown is spreading from the mainland to wherever China can dominate or exert influence. 

The trend is one reason world opinion is building against China as a threat to democracy and freedom.

Sina Delenda Est

Great powers stepping up on China
By Peter Hartcher

One nation after another at a weekend conference lined up to denounce China for breaking international law and to reassert "the rules-based order", but a curious pattern quickly emerged.
The further a country from the front line of China's relentless expansion into the South China Sea, the tougher it talked.
The countries who are actually losing their claimed territories to China's military forces were much more diplomatic. 

So diplomatic, in fact, that they tiptoed carefully around the subject and had little or nothing to say.
One of the striking new responses to China's unchecked gains in the region is the rising protest from Europe. 

The annual Shangri-la security dialogue in Singapore heard stern words from the defence ministers of Britain, France and Germany on the weekend. 

All three declared that they will uphold "the rule of law" in the South China Sea.
France and Britain said that they were stepping up naval movements through the zone: "No less than five French ships sailed in this area in 2017," said French Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly. 

"European ships are mobilising more widely."
Britain's Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson quipped: "We have been pleased to commit three Royal Navy ships to this region in the last year, although hearing France committed five, I think I have to commit to six" this year.
Parly said that Britain and France, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, were sending naval ships to visit Singapore next week and then into "territorial waters" in the South China Sea. 

They would also be carrying German naval observers.

US warns of 'consequences' if China continues 'intimidation and coercion'
She said that the French vessels expected to come under challenge, just as the US navy was challenged by China's navy last week when they sailed within 12 nautical miles of Woody Island in the Paracels group. 

This is the island, also claimed by Vietnam, where China landed heavy bombers last month.
"At some point a stern voice intrudes into the transponder and tells us to sail away from supposedly ‘territorial waters’,” said Parly. 

“But our commander then calmly replies that he will sail forth, because these, under international law, are indeed international waters.”
Why does Europe care? 

Because, said Britain's Williamson, the commercial shipping artery that runs through the South China Sea is incredibly important: "If there's a problem there, there's a problem for the whole world."
Parly said: "We do it because under international law we know that practice can become accepted. If a fait accompli is not questioned it can be opened. We place ourselves in the position of persistent objector to any claim of de facto sovereignty."

HMS Sutherland

India, a fast-rising power, is a lot closer to the hot zone than Europe, and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi set out a policy that brings it even closer.
Modi described India's interests as defined by the Indo-Pacific, "from the shores of Africa to that of the Americas". 

A vast span that includes, of course, the South China Sea, which he mentioned specifically.
When Modi spoke of the problems in the region, he didn't name China but told the conference that "above all, we see assertion of power over recourse to international norms". 

He called for a "free, open, inclusive region". 

He noted the importance of freedom of navigation.
In competition with China's narrative of its history and values, Modi spelled out India's own historical relationship to the ocean over thousands of years and asserted the "foundation of our civilisational ethos – of pluralism, co-existence, openness and dialogue. The ideals of democracy that define us as a nation also shape the way we engage the world".

French Defence Minister Florence Parly.

Britain's Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson

Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister, delivers the keynote at the Shangri-la dialogue.

And in a departure from India's long passivity, the Indian leader described an active military outreach: "Indian Armed Forces, especially our navy, are building partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region for peace and security, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."
While the great powers stepped forward to decry the breakdown of the rules-based order, the front-line casualties were very quiet. 

China's island-building and militarisation has hit the Philippines and Vietnam harder than any other countries, and in past years they were outspoken about it.
The defence ministers of both countries spoke at the conference. Both avoided any mention of their territorial claims. 

They avoided touching on China's forcible island-building and militarisation of the disputed maritime space.
One of their fellow ASEAN members, Indonesia's Defence Minister, Ryamizard Ryacudu, even went so far as to say that there was no problem. 

Indonesia makes no claim to the island groups claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. 

But it has had its own clash with China over the Natuna Islands at the southern end of the South China Sea.
Ryamizard dismissed any possibility of armed conflict in the region. 

"I talked about factual threats," he said in response to a question on the subject. 

As for conventional war or strategic threat, "I don't see any potential threat. Indonesia sees the most factual threat as terrorism."
And the traditional leading power in the Pacific? 

Speaking at the same conference, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was blunt on China's recent deployment of cruise missiles to the disputed territories of the South China Sea: "Despite China’s claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.”
It seems to have worked. 

It seems that the Philippines and Vietnam have been intimidated into quiescence. 

And while Mattis talked tough and threatened China with unspecified "consequences", the force of his message was soon undercut by his President.
When the hundreds of military chiefs and defence officials who'd heard Mattis' words on the Saturday woke on the Sunday, they saw an overnight tweet from Donald Trump. 

Trump noted Mattis' charge that China had deployed "coercion and intimidation" and he added: "Very surprised that China would be doing this?"
The US has suffered a loss of credibility and, with antics like this, why would anyone take it seriously? 

South East Asia is giving up on America and yielding to China.
More distant great powers have noticed. 

They are worried but none is prepared to stand in China's way. 

China has launched more tonnage of new warships in just the last four years than the entire French navy can boast in totality, according to the International Institute of International Affairs. 

Beijing continues to get its way.

The Indo-Pacific Alliance

• The Trump administration has begun using the term "Indo-Pacific to describe the Asia region.
• This signals a shift away from a China-centric narrative of Asia, and aligns the US more closely with India.
• Changing which nations are included in a region can alter international relationships and affect how resources are distributed.

By Tara Francis Chan
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, during a news conference at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Japan, November 6, 2017. 

"Indo-Pacific" is the official term the Trump administration is now using for Asia.
Forgoing the more popular "Asia-Pacific," the White House repeatedly referred to the Indo-Pacific region ahead of US President Donald Trump's current visit to Asia. 

The term change, which subtly shifts the focus from China to India, could frustrate China and have real implications for how the region allocates its resources in the coming years and decades.
A recent statement from the White House containing Trump's Asia itinerary twice stated the importance of a "free and open Indo-Pacific region" while National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told the press more than once that Trump had called "Indo-Pacific leaders" ahead of his trip.
And last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave a speech that used the phrase Indo-Pacific 23 times.

This indicates a shift away from China
This language change signifies a desire to move away from a China-centric narrative of Asia and promote the US relationship with India.
"As China seeks to dominate the Asia-Pacific, the Trump administration is broadening the geographic area to South Asia and the Indian Ocean since it is not likely that India will fall into the Chinese orbit," Stanley Rosen, a specialist in Chinese politics at the USC US-China Institute, told Business Insider.
"The US and India have a common interest in not having an assertive China dominating the region," said Rosen.
The shift has strengthened in the last few weeks ahead of a likely "quadrilateral" meeting between the US, India, Japan, and Australia during Trump's Asia tour.
Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop recently said she welcomes the meeting "to maximize our opportunities within the Indo-Pacific region in which international law and the rules-based order is respected."
"Rules-based order" is often a veiled reference to China's more authoritarian rule.
The phrase Indo-Pacific has existed for some time and is commonplace in India and Australia — the two countries that mark the region's edges — particularly with policy experts.
"It didn’t start with the Trump Administration," S. Paul Kapur, a national-security professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School told Business Insider. 

"For example, the 2015 US Maritime Strategy referred to the region as the Indo-Asia-Pacific."
But the term is a clear shift away from policies of the Obama administration, which still referred to the Asia-Pacific on Obama's last visit to the region in September 2016. 

A search of the Obama White House archives for "Asia-Pacific" returns 837 results, while "Indo-Pacific" has just six.
It's also a departure from previous Republican administrations. 

White House archives for George W. Bush contain 537 documents referring to the Asia-Pacific but not a single one mentions the Indo-Pacific.

New terms will affect how the region develops
While changing four letters seems small, it can have huge implications. 

How a region allocates resources, prioritizes security of regional partners and grants membership to diplomatic organizations can all shift based on which countries are included in a specific region.
And the US is hoping that treating the region holistically will shift the balance of power.
"The Chinese government would not be unreasonable in viewing this as part of an effort to offer the region a liberal alternative to China’s socialist and more authoritarian approach to regional development and integration," said Kapur.
"The US is approaching the region in this holistic fashion in the hope that liberal norms and structures such as the rule of law, free markets, mechanisms for deliberative dispute resolution, and open access to commons emerge not in piecemeal fashion, but rather in a single institutional web stretching from the United States westward to India and beyond."
It's a shift China is unlikely to be thrilled about.
"China of course will not be happy if the US and India draw closer together ... they will watch the relationship with India carefully," said Rosen.