February 14, 2025
Why Beijing Fears Hong Kong
One of the principal reasons the CCP wants the extradition bill is because Beijing fears Hong Kong’s freedoms and their ardent advocates could inspire mainland opposition.
One of the principal reasons the CCP wants the extradition bill is because Beijing fears Hong Kong’s freedoms and their ardent advocates could inspire mainland opposition.

Anti-extradition protests broke out in Hong Kong after pro-Beijing Chief Executive Carrie Lam moved to push extradition laws through the Hong Kong parliament. That legislation has now been postponed “indefinitely”, but the demonstrations haven’t stopped. If anything, they have grown bigger.

The protests come shortly after the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, prompting inevitable chills in Hong Kong at memories of how China handled that earlier eruption of dissent. Beijing now resorts to more silent and sophisticated forms of control when smashing dissent, but the goal and philosophy remain the same: one way or another all critics must be squashed. Also driving protesters is the common knowledge that Ms Lam some months ago played an integral role in banning the pro-independence party after its convenor, Chan Ho-tin, was arrested for criticizing Beijing.

Allowing Beijing to extradite individuals would violate the 1997 deal that handed over Hong Kong — an agreement which saw promises of social, legal and political freedoms for Hong Kong as an autonomous special administrative region (SAR). Hong Kong and China have different legal systems and different judicial cultures. Chinese prosecutors have a 99 per cent conviction rate that makes kangaroo courts seem fair. The outcomes are predetermined, with verdicts focused on what best serves the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Justice takes a distant second place behind power, control, and tyranny.

One needs to have a clear-cut stand and dare to show the sword against them, to struggle against any erroneous words and actions that deny the leadership of the Communist Party, or slander the rule of law and the judicial system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The quote above aren’t the words of a low-level CCP apparatchik. They come from Zhou Qiang, mainland Chief Justice of China’s Supreme Court. Entering into an extradition agreement would effectively stifle the right to a fair trial, equality before the law and the very integrity of Hong Kong’s autonomous justice system.

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See Also:

(1) China won’t allow Carrie Lam to step down despite mass unrest: HK official

(2) Will Beijing still support Carrie Lam after Hong Kong extradition bill debacle?

(3) Hong Kong: Anti-Corruption vs. Pro-Truth