
As America grapples with disease and political unrest, the people of Hong Kong face a problem that is yet more pressing: the gradual, incessant erosion of their self-governance. In theory, the Chinese promise of “one country, two systems” has provided for a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong since the expiration of the territory’s lease to the United Kingdom in 1997. But in practice, Beijing has not proved keen to uphold its own principle: In late May, the National People’s Congress (NPC) embraced sweeping measures that allegedly aim to compensate for Hong Kong’s lack of national-security provisions but in reality seem poised to threaten the civil liberties of Hongkongers as soon as late June. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has put it, Beijing’s new security law is the “death knell” for Hong Kong’s autonomy: It gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the power to establish its security agencies more openly in Hong Kong, as well as to suppress pro-democracy protesters and other critics of mainland China. Teresa Cheng, the pro-Beijing secretary of justice of Hong Kong, has even admitted that the NPC’s security law will not conform to the legal tradition of Hong Kong: “It is impracticable and unreasonable to expect that everything in a national law, the National Security Law, will be exactly as what a statute in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) common law jurisdiction would be like.”
In light of the NPC’s recent measures, the prospect of self-governance looks grim for Hong Kong. But these measures are just the latest ploy in a long campaign by the CCP to erode the autonomy of its showpiece capitalist territory. Indeed, to even hope to understand how the free world can combat Beijing’s growing hegemony in the South China Sea and beyond, it is imperative to consider how the Chinese regime has acquired the means, will, and occasion to clamp down on Hong Kong.
[Interesting Read]