In the war of words between China and the West or between China and the United States, China has submitted another losing entry.
Disregard for rights
First, “US condemns Hong Kong bounties, passport revocations for democrats” (Reuters, December 27, 2024). The representative of the United States is the U.S. State Department, which has released a statement, an unexceptionable indictment and statement of the obvious.
The United States condemns the Hong Kong government’s issuance of new arrest warrants and bounties targeting six overseas democracy activists and the cancellation of passports for seven other activists, including some based in the United States. We reject the Hong Kong government’s efforts to intimidate and silence individuals who choose to make the United States their home. The United States does not waver in its advocacy for those who are targeted simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
The extraterritorial application of Hong Kong’s national security laws is a form of transnational repression that threatens U.S. sovereignty and the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world. These actions demonstrate Hong Kong authorities’ disregard for international norms and for the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
We call on the Hong Kong government to stop using its national security laws to silence dissent.
Second, the Chinese government objected to these objections.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (shown above) said: “The extraterritorial application of Hong Kong’s national security laws is fully consistent with international law and practice.” Other governments do things; here is China doing things as well.
Moreover, American criticism of China’s conduct in the matter is a form of “abusing the concept of national security and exercising illegal long-arm jurisdiction…. We advise the country concerned to face up to their own problems and stop political manipulation under the pretext of so-called human rights.”
In a Barron’s report, Ming is quoted as declaring that “China is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposes [the U.S. statement]. Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs, and we do not tolerate interference and meddling by any external power.
“We urge the U.S. side to earnestly respect China’s sovereignty and Hong Kong’s laws, and stop supporting these anti-China figures who sow chaos in Hong Kong.”
Like others in the same gang who also meet the press, Mao Ning is a master of this sort of thing: of rhetorical stonewalling, gliding past pertinent facts, humptydumptification of words, projection. And if only her audience consisted only of hypnotized slack-jawed thralls, she’d be invariably persuasive.
Human rights requirements
Chiming in, a CCP spokesman unnamed by the Government of the Hong Kong Administrative Region has declared that “all specified measures, including the cancellation of passports and eligibility for application, align with human rights requirements; and quite a number of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada would also impose such measures on wanted criminals. It is indeed a demonstration of hypocrisy with double standards by any external forces or people with ulterior motives that, after the HKSAR Government has announced the relevant measures, attack the HKSAR in safeguarding national security dutifully, faithfully and in accordance with the law.”
Also, said the spokesman: “The Constitution and the Basic Law steadfastly safeguard the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong people.”
It’s all good as long as you assert that any violations of human rights are consistent with “human rights requirements” and that anyone who advocates respect for human rights is ipso facto a criminal.
Bottom line: “We’re going to keep transnationally repressing no matter what you say, so shut up.”
China wants no interference with its interference, nor any opposition to its opposition. It wants all of its victims and all of its enemies to simply surrender. But you can’t always get what you want.
