The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday warned Taiwanese to avoid traveling to or through Hong Kong, as well as Macau and the rest of China, in the wake of the national security legislation that the Chinese National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed on Tuesday.
MAC Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正), who delivered the warning, called the new legislation “outrageous.”
It is that and more: It is contemptible, it is evil and ultimately it will be more destructive to Hong Kong and the rest of China than the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) fears of secessionism or terrorism that the legislation was purportedly drafted to combat.
With its six chapters and 66 articles, the legislation is far more intrusive then even the most pessimistic had feared, as it criminalizes dissent and establishes a secret police agency for Hong Kong.
It was, of course, immediately signed into law by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Xi and the CCP are not worried about the specter of secessionism in Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet any more than they are worried about terrorism in those areas: The mighty CCP imperial dragon is afraid of mice, independent-thinking mice who dare to criticize Beijing and proffer the idea that there might be an alternative way.
The terrible irony is that the CCP’s actions, especially under Xi, are fueling a steady rise in the mice population — no matter how many critics are detained, imprisoned or killed, more keep showing up to take their place. This is why the party is all about mind control, and why it has for the past several years been trying desperately to get “patriotic education” onto the curriculum of Hong Kong’s schools: because those who grow up in non-CCP-dominated school systems know what a load of rubbish the CCP’s history books are, they learn about the millions who died during Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) rule, and they learn about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
However, it is not just the arbitrariness of alleged offenses, it is the broadness of the legislation’s scope.
Article 38 states that the legislation encompasses offenses committed outside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region “by a person who is not a permanent resident of the region” — that means anyone, regardless of nationality and residency, could face prosecution in Hong Kong for any past criticism of the CCP, Beijing or the territory’s government.
While some have said that the legislation is not retroactive, who is willing to trust Beijing?
Lee Ming-che (李明哲) was detained in March 2017 after he entered Guangdong Province from Macau, and Chinese authorities trumped up charges that he had been colluding with dissidents in China to cover up that he was prosecuted merely for things he said and wrote while in Taiwan. Lee was convicted of “subversion of state power” for the spread of information critical of the Chinese government online.
Now, Beijing’s apparatchiks do not have to wait for a Taiwanese — or any other foreigner — to cross into China from Hong Kong or kidnap them there — they can arrest them in the territory.
Beijing fully deserves the world’s opprobrium, if not sanctions, but so do quislings such as Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), her administration, pro-Beijing members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), and everyone else who has supported the legislation as a way of “returning Hong Kong to normal and revitalizing its economy.”
Hong Kong will never be “normal” again, and the freedoms that helped build the territory’s fortunes after World War II and after the 1997 handover have been willingly ceded to Beijing by these people.
Or perhaps, to put it in terms that they might understand, they are like Wu San-kuei (吳三桂), the Ming Dynasty military leader who opened the Great Wall to allow the barbarian Manchu hordes into China.
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