What other songs might the Chinese Communist Party object to that Western platforms and distributors could delete from their offerings?
The CCP has gotten distributor EmuBands to toss what may in China’s view be the top offender, “Glory to Hong Kong.” This is the anthem of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Hong Kongers filled the streets in 2019 and in earlier demonstrations when stopping China from destroying Hong Kong’s freedom and democracy still seemed possible (“British firm accused of caving in to Beijing by taking Hong Kong protest song off Spotify,” The Telegraph, June 1, 2024).
Glory to Hong Kong was released by a group of mostly anonymous musicians, DGX Music, during the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations and has since become an unofficial anthem for the territory and its struggle against oppression.
Last month a court in Hong Kong granted a government injunction to ban the song on the basis that it “can be deployed to arouse anti-establishment sentiments”.
The move, part of a brutal crackdown of democratic freedoms since Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020, overturned a decision by a lower court which rejected a ban because of possible “chilling effects” on free speech.
EmuBands, a Glasgow-based company which distributes music to major streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon, subsequently removed the song.
EmuBands says it was too expensive to hire lawyers to analyze the recent Hong Kong court order to remove the song; the cost of doing so “far outweighs the fees we have received for distributing the song.”
Answer: don’t bother studying the court order, just ignore it.
The managing director of EmuBands, Ally Gray, also says, “We are not censoring” the artist, who “is obviously free to choose another distributor to work with on this song and I imagine they have already organized this.” Sure, it’s not government censorship, just voluntary submission to government censorship.
Google’s YouTube is also obeying the Chinese Communist Party in this matter. Or trying to.
South China Morning Post reported that although YouTube blocked access to 32 clips of “Glory to Hong Kong” for viewers in Hong Kong, more clips of it were soon being uploaded, at least 20 as of SCMP’s May 15 article. If Google doesn’t find a way to prevent instances of the song from being uploaded to begin with—and one hopes the company has no desire to find such a method—Hongkongers could presumably keep reposting “Glory to Hong Kong” to YouTube indefinitely.
“The allure of China’s large consumer base is a powerful motivator for Western companies to oblige to the will of the Chinese Communist Party,” says Alyssa Fong of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.
“But the pursuit of profit is now coming at the cost of Hong Kong’s history being erased. Western countries benefit from the democratic values of their home countries but will actively contribute to the silencing of dissent in Hong Kong so long as it benefits them economically.”
