Updated: December 19, 2022 04:54 AM GMT
Hong Kong pro-democracy protester Bob Chan poses with a picture on his phone showing injuries following the assault at China's Manchester consulate during a demonstration three days earlier, during a press conference, in London, on Oct. 19. (Photo: AFP)
For the past four years, Hong Kong has lived through hell. In 2019, mass protests swept the city, met by horrific police brutality. In 2020, Beijing imposed the draconian National Security Law that dismantled the city’s freedoms and autonomy.
In 2021, what remained of press freedom was dismantled, with the closure of independent publications such as Apple Daily and Stand News and the arrest of their senior editors. In 2022, we have seen the culmination of the transformation of Hong Kong from one of Asia’s most open cities into one of the region’s most repressive police states, with the selection (one cannot call it an ‘election’) of John Lee as chief executive.
Lee is the very embodiment of Hong Kong’s metamorphosis into a police state. His entire career has been in frontline policing and then as an official in Hong Kong’s Security Bureau, serving as Chief Executive CY Leung’s under-secretary for security and then as Carrie Lam’s secretary for security.
All of Hong Kong’s previous chief executives — whatever their faults, and there were many — had broad experience: Tung Chee-hwa and CY Leung in business, Donald Tsang and Carrie Lam in the civil services across many government departments and policy areas.
"Beijing puts political control over all other considerations, in the mainland and in Hong Kong, at all costs"
Apart from a few months as chief secretary — Lam’s number two — Lee’s only experience of government in his career is of beating and locking people up. No knowledge of any other policy area — not economics, business, finance, housing, education, health, transport, or infrastructure.
Lee’s appointment reflects not only Beijing’s repressive turn, but its ideological turn — Beijing puts political control over all other considerations, in the mainland and in Hong Kong, at all costs.
While we have not yet seen the expected introduction of Article 23 of the Basic Law — the anti-sedition law — and nor has the threatened “fake news” law Lee promised, the National Security Law by itself has destroyed Hong Kong’s space for dissent, pro-democracy activism, civil society or independent media.
In 2022, we have seen the arrest and trial of a 90-year-old cardinal, Hong Kong’s Bishop Emeritus Joseph Zen, the continued imprisonment and multiple trials of 75-year-old entrepreneur, pro-democracy activist and media proprietor Jimmy Lai and the assault on the 66-year-old Grandma Wong in a demonstration in Hong Kong in solidarity with protesters in China in November.
We also saw thousands queue to sign the book of condolences at the British Consulate-General when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died, and the arrest of a man who played the pro-democracy movement’s anthem, Glory to Hong Kong, on a harmonica.
Earlier in the year, a group of Hong Kong speech therapists was put on trial and jailed for writing children’s books deemed to be seditious, while radio presenter Tam Tak-chi was imprisoned for 40 months in the first sedition trial since the handover.
"The regime in Beijing signaled to the world that its repression does not stop within mainland China’s borders or at Hong Kong’s borders"
And this year, the Chinese Communist Party’s tentacles have reached well beyond Hong Kong’s borders. In February, Hong Kong Watch’s website was blocked in Hong Kong. In March, I received letters from the Hong Kong Police Force and the National Security Bureau, warning me that my activities — from London — pose a serious threat to China’s national security, that we are in violation of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, and that unless we cease our activities within 72 hours, I personally could face a heavy fine and a prison term in Hong Kong.
Such a warning is absurd, as I am already banned from Hong Kong, and the organization I co-founded and led, Hong Kong Watch, has absolutely no presence, no legal entity, no employees, no personnel, nothing in Hong Kong. Yet Hong Kong’s National Security Law has an extraterritorial provision, and the authorities were flexing their muscles and dangling this threat before me.
More seriously, in October, officials from the Chinese Consulate in Manchester — including the consul-general, Zheng Xiyuan, and several of his fellow diplomats — assaulted a group of peaceful Hong Kongers protesting at the consulate’s gates. They actually dragged one young Hong Konger, Bob Chan, whom I met a few days later, into the consulate, where Zheng himself pulled Chan’s hair while his colleagues poked their fingers into Chan’s hands — a gruesome, barbaric, medieval act of torture — on the streets of Manchester.
In this very vivid and bloody incident, the regime in Beijing signaled to the world that its repression does not stop within mainland China’s borders or at Hong Kong’s borders, but is targeted at anyone, anywhere, who at any time criticizes Xi Jinping and his cabal.
Of course, no one experienced this all-out assault on dissent more than Xi Jinping’s predecessor Hu Jintao, who was dramatically dragged out of the 20th Party Congress, or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who encountered Xi’s bully-boy behavior at the G20 in Bali.
But 2022 was not all bad news. The world is beginning to stand up to Beijing.
The last governor of Hong Kong, Lord Chris Patten, published his Hong Kong Diaries, which I have read, reviewed and recommend. Hong Kong Watch held two events to help launch the book, including one for 500 Hong Kongers in the UK on July 1, the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong. Friends of Hong Kong are continuing to speak up, and that gives us hope.
Most especially, the United Nations Human Rights Committee called, in July, for the repeal of the draconian National Security Law, and the introduction of universal suffrage.
And in 2022, the British government, after advocacy from Hong Kong Watch, our patrons, parliamentary allies and other friends, expanded its lifeboat scheme for Hong Kongers by accepting an amendment to its British National Overseas (BNO) program that will allow young Hong Kongers, if they have one parent with BNO status, to claim BNO rights and come to the UK independently of their parents. This is a major breakthrough and provides a lifeline to many young Hong Kongers who need to find sanctuary.
But there is still so much more to be done.
"2022 has been a horrible year for Hong Kong, and perhaps more horrible than previous years"
We need sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong officials responsible for dismantling Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy, violating an international treaty and committing serious human rights violations. My team in Hong Kong Watch will continue to push for this.
We need more lifeboat schemes — the UK’s program is generous and courageous, but we need allies, such as Canada and Australia — which have begun to help but need to do more — and the United States and the European Union, which still need to do their part — to help.
And we need to maintain intense scrutiny of upcoming trials. It is absurd that Jimmy Lai has just been given an almost six-year sentence for one of the trumped-up charges leveled against him, and at the same time denied his choice of legal representation — British barrister Tim Owen, KC — for his National Security Law trial.
Indeed, that trial has now been postponed until September 2023, even though Lai has already been held in prison awaiting trial for the past two years. If ever there was a definition of the concept of “miscarriage of justice,” it's Jimmy Lai’s trial.
So 2022 has been a horrible year for Hong Kong, and perhaps more horrible than previous years because the screws have been turned in the shadows, away from the front pages. But Hong Kongers can rest assured that I won’t stay silent, and will not rest until the world cries out not only for Jimmy Lai, Cardinal Zen and other prominent Hong Kongers facing injustice but also for all those whose names are not known but who are also persecuted.
The protests might have stopped. The independent media’s printing presses might have shut down. And some voices in Hong Kong might have gone quiet. But that’s all the more reason why our voices should be raised to speak for those who can no longer speak. They’re articulate and more than capable of speaking for themselves, but the consequences for them are now so high that they need us to speak instead. Let us not fail them. Let us continue the fight for freedom.
Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and writer. He is the co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, Senior Analyst for East Asia at the international human rights organization CSW, co-founder and deputy chair of the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, a member of the advisory group of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and a board member of the Stop Uyghur Genocide Campaign. He is the author of six books, and his faith journey is told in his book “From Burma to Rome: A Journey into the Catholic Church” (Gracewing, 2015). His new book, “The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny”, was launched in October by Optimum Publishing International. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
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