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On Wednesday, Hong Kong police arrested more than 50 activists, former lawmakers and academics, including an American human rights lawyer, in a series of morning raids involving more than 1,000 officials in a former British colony. All of them helped organize informal by-elections to nominate candidates for the next parliamentary elections, which were later postponed.
Such a tough one-day operation is the largest since the entry into force of Beijing’s national security law, which allows a person to be sentenced to life in prison for the slightest crime. This shocked the city, where opposition figures are increasingly being prosecuted for participating in protests or putting up posters. Among those arrested was former law professor Benny Tai, who helped organize the preliminary elections.
The latest operation has shown the extent to which Chinese President Xi Jinping is managing to restore the balance of power in favor of the government after a historic wave of democratic protests that failed to free Hong Kong from the clutches of recent months. Xi Jinping did his best to crack down on the city’s opposition, despite condemnation from the international community and efforts by the Donald Trump administration to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and remove trade preferences for the Asian financial center.
John clancey
“Continuous efforts”
Although Biden has promised to coordinate more efforts to preserve democracy in the world, it is difficult to predict what he could do to reverse the trend in Hong Kong. During the latest operation, American lawyer John Clancey, who worked for a famous local law firm and was treasurer for a preliminary election organizer, was arrested. This is the first time a foreigner has been detained under the new Chinese law. This arrest is expected to only exacerbate tensions between Washington and Beijing.
“The mass arrests this morning show the relentless efforts of the regime to go after pro-democracy activists,” said opposition politician Fernand Cheung, adding that Hong Kong is taking advantage of the West’s current focus on the coronavirus pandemic. . “This is a clear signal to the new Biden administration that China will not weaken its efforts to uproot the opposition in Hong Kong and is determined to take full control.”
The arrest of activists took place at a time when the two main Western nations that have put the most pressure on China over the events in Hong Kong are still not recovering from internal political troubles and mounting statistics on COVID-19 cases. . Washington is under attack for Trump’s attempts to question the election results, while the UK has focused on Brexit and trade talks with Europe and the reintroduction of quarantine measures.
Investors are mostly involved in the tightening of Xi Jinping’s measures. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose to an eleven-month high on Wednesday, while the city’s currency held strong positions against the US dollar. While recent polls show that American companies in Hong Kong are concerned about national security law, only a handful of large companies plan to abandon operations in the financial center.
Biden’s designated US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that the president-elect was monitoring the situation and, in a Twitter message, condemned “an attack against those who boldly promote universal rights.” The administration “will defend the people of Hong Kong and oppose Beijing’s crackdown on democracy,” he added.
Hua Chunying, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said when asked about Blinken’s comments that “no other country has the right to improperly comment or interfere in Chinese affairs.”
On Wednesday, Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee defended the arrest operation as “necessary” to punish those who seek to paralyze the government and push it into the “abyss.” According to him, it will not apply to more than 600,000 voters who participated in the by-elections.
The Beijing Liaison Office in Hong Kong welcomed the arrests as the right step to get Hong Kong “back on track.”
Resistance suppression
Most of the Hong Kong opposition has already been expelled, disqualified or faces criminal charges. Some activists have fled into exile in Europe, others are trying to flee the ships as fears of arrest mount. Congressional elections scheduled for September, in which Democrats hoped to win an unprecedented majority, were postponed for a year.
In fact, Wednesday’s arrests were sparked by attempts by opposition groups to overcome the Beijing government’s encroachment and internal disagreements by holding public preliminary elections and choosing a unified list of candidates. They later planned to secure enough seats in the legislature to comply with the provisions of the city’s laws, and hoped to force his resignation when Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s budget was blocked.
“If participating in an election and trying to win an election is destructive, it is clear that the National Security Act seeks the complete subjugation of the Hong Kong people,” said Victoria Hui, associate professor of politics in Hong Kong.
The Chinese government has warned that such plans run counter to the new security law, likening the efforts to provoking a “color revolution.”
Be that as it may, the arrest of an American lawyer “shows that expatriates are not protected from the risks posed by national security law,” said Thomas Kellogg, executive director of the Georgetown Asian Law Center. “His arrest will have a great impact on Hong Kong’s reputation as a world leader.”
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