Repression in Hong Kong is a work in progress, and a revealing window on the party’s worldview
Only last month the governments of America, Australia and Britain formally protested when the authorities in Hong Kong announced bounties of HK$1m on eight democracy activists living as exiles in their respective countries. The territory’s chief executive, John Lee, a former police officer, pledged that the eight will be “pursued for life” and “spend their days in fear”. This was not mere bluster.
For all those signs of external scrutiny, there are signs of policymakers in foreign capitals losing interest, or at least hope. The Western diplomat laments that, back home, the city’s smothering is considered a done deal. “When I talk to colleagues at headquarters, they already consider Hong Kong to be part of China.”
Then there is the impact on the stand-off over Taiwan, the democratic, self-ruled island that China calls its own. China’s preferred Taiwan scenario involves the island’s peaceful submission, in return for limited autonomy under a version of “one country, two systems”. If foreign governments allow China to trample commitments to Hong Kong with impunity, they risk encouraging rulers in Beijing to imagine they can do the same to Taiwan.
For now, the territory enjoys freedoms unknown in mainland China. The internet is not sealed behind China’s “great firewall”. One of the biggest threats to debate is arguably self-censorship, induced by fear and by deliberately vague calls by Hong Kong’s officials to eradicate “soft resistance”—their sinister description of dissent that does not explicitly challenge the law.
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