Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Hong Kong Security Law is in Effect - Bill Bishop - Sinocism

There is a high degree of alarm about the new national security law. It strikes me as a harsh but pretty conventional set of security laws - essentially supplanting Hong Kong's more protective law, as Changhao Wei of NPC Observer explains. It spells the end of the autonomy that has been Hong Kong's governance mode. The Hong Kong government failed to maintain order and to enact its own security law - despite an obligation to do so. The massive protests which went on for months and disrupted the life of the former British colony demonstrated the incompetence of the Hong Kong government and anarchistic cynicism of many in the protest movement.

The contradictions of the British legal legacy and the special status of Hong Kong produced a local culture utterly intolerant of the one party, highly censored political life of the mainland. The absence both of independence and of genuine self government yielded a fractious and undisciplined mainly youthful opposition.
The usual criteria for development of a national liberation movement were absent. There are no linguistic, tribal or other forces that would support an independence movement. And if one had developed, it surely would have been suppressed.

So Hong Kong did not develop as the in-house Singapore that the CP had hoped for. Instead they found themselves with a fractious population governed incompetently by a local leadership that did not have enough power to maintain both order and international business confidence. So the sovereign has stepped in with both feet.

It is hard to see a bright future for Hong Kong. Businesses are likely to avoid the risks and acquiesce in the terms offered in Shenzhen and other mainland centers. Hong Kong will probably bump along with slowly declining prosperity as Singapore proves a more stable authoritarian option. - gwc

Hong Kong National Security Law is in effect; CCP turns 99; Gaokao

by Bill Bishop June 30, 2020

The Hong Kong National Security law has been promulgated and is now in effect. You can read the official versions here in simplified Chinese, here in traditional Chinese and here in English.

Some highlights:

Chapter III Offences and Penalties 第三章　罪行和处罚

Part 1 Secession 第一节　分裂国家罪

Part 2 Subversion 第二节　颠覆国家政权罪

Part 3 Terrorist Activities 第三节　恐怖活动罪

Part 4 Collusion with a Foreign Country or with External Elements to Endanger National Security 第四节　勾结外国或者境外势力危害国家安全罪

Article 38 This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region. 第三十八条　不具有香港特别行政区永久性居民身份的人在香港特别行政区以外针对香港特别行政区实施本法规定的犯罪的，适用本法。

Article 54 The Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall, together with the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, take necessary measures to strengthen the management of and services for organs of foreign countries and international organisations in the Region, as well as non-governmental organisations and news agencies of foreign countries and from outside the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao of the People’s Republic of China in the Region. 第五十四条　驻香港特别行政区维护国家安全公署、外交部驻香港特别行政区特派员公署会同香港特别行政区政府采取必要措施，加强对外国和国际组织驻香港特别行政区机构、在香港特别行政区的外国和境外非政府组织和新闻机构的管理和服务。

There is talk of marches tomorrow, July 1, the 23rd anniversary of the handover. Perhaps there will be safety in numbers if tens of thousands or more take to the streets?

Expect the authorities to target a handful of people and cases to use as examples for the new law.

Xi and the CCP leadership were never going to back down from pushing through this law, no matter how much the Trump administration threatened. Now the US is in a bit of a bind, as the measures threatened so far look like they harm Hong Kong citizens and US interests more than they impact Xi and the CCP. Will the Trump administration blink, or will we see much more impactful moves like sanctions on major PRC financial institutions and senior Party/central government leaders and their family members? And will the US or any other Western governments do anything meaningful for Hong Kong residents?

I still stand by my comments from the May 28 newsletter:

The US runs the risk of having made a big deal about this law and then issuing a weak response that imposes relatively little cost on Beijing. I believe that is what Xi is betting on, and certainly the utterances from other governments have been fairly milquetoast, or non-existent as in the case of most of the PRC’s neighbors.

For Xi and the CCP, Hong Kong political security and the territory’s place in the Motherland trump whatever increase in US-China friction may come, and in the logic the two countries are now stuck in a harsh US response will only confirm to Xi and many in China that the US is hellbent on keeping China down, while a weak response from DC will add to the view already held by more than a few in Beijing that Trump and the US are paper tigers, as Mao liked to say, and Beijing can increasingly act with impunity. It is a toxic dynamic.

The new Hong Kong law will likely bring much more attention to the question of what if anything the US and its allies should or can do to protect Taiwan. There is no longer any reasonable prospect of “peaceful reunification” as the CCP calls it. Taiwan President Tsai tweeted a few hours ago: