Just like her fellow Hong Kong protesters, pop star Denise Ho (何韻詩) is standing up to China. Just like them, she seems to have gotten under Beijing’s skin — this time at an international human rights venue.
The Canto-pop singer on Monday used her star power to stand up to China’s economic and political power at the UN’s top human rights body, telling the UN Human Rights Council that human rights were under attack in Hong Kong and asking whether it would suspend China as a member of the 47-nation body for its abuses.
Ever-sensitive to its growing international reputation, China’s envoy shot back and interrupted Ho twice during her 90-second slot.
The chair, Icelandic Ambassador to Switzerland Harald Aspelund, gave some gentle reminders, but let her keep talking.
Ho’s comments were some of the sharpest and most varied criticism of China that the council has heard since the US pulled out last year, partly over complaints by the administration of US President Donald Trump that too many rights-breaching states were among its members.
The US had been generally seen as one of the countries least hesitant to stand up to its rising rival at the Geneva-based council.
Ho ripped into the bill that would allow Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China for trial, saying that such a move would “remove the firewall protecting Hong Kong from interference of the Chinese government” — an allusion to a UK-China agreement linked to Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997.
Chinese diplomat Dai Demao (戴德茂) quickly upbraided her, saying that she had wrongly referred to Hong Kong “side-by-side” with China, which he called an affront to the widely recognized “one China” principle.
Ho then denounced the disqualifications of lawmakers, the jailing of activists and the “cross-border kidnappings” of booksellers in Hong Kong as signs of “China’s tightening grip.”
Hong Kong’s autonomy had slowly eroded since the handover, she said, accusing China of “preventing our democracy at all costs,” such as by appointing Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), who the protesters want to see ousted.
Dai burst in again to reject “unfounded allegations” and appealed to the chair that she refrain from using “abusive language.”
Unbowed, Ho raised the tone again, asking the council whether it would suspend China and convene an urgent session to protect people in Hong Kong amid rising protests.
UN Watch, the advocacy group that hosted Ho, faulted Western countries for not speaking out in her defense.
China’s envoy also blasted the non-governmental organization, saying that it had “abused its consultative status” and engaged in slandering — without mentioning the group or Ho by name.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Ho said that she had not received any threats for her outspokenness.
“I don’t know if it will stay this way,” she said. “I will stand strong.”
In an interview with the Associated Press before the session, Ho said that the implications of China’s alleged rights abuses went far beyond Hong Kong, in places like Tibet and China’s Xinjiang region, home to many Uighur Muslims.
“This is a very serious issue and a global issue that not only touches Hong Kong people, but really the global world — where you see governments, they are silencing themselves, because of being afraid of political reprisal, economic reprisal,” Ho said.
She praised a “creative move” by protesters in Kowloon over the weekend who reached out to incoming tourists from China, saying that many people in China had been “brainwashed to think that Hong Kong people are just rioters and anti-China, which is not true.”
Ho said that her activism has come at a personal price: She has not had any commercial work for the past several years, and she cannot travel to China.
However, she brushed off the personal effects and said that she would stay committed to the cause — even though she cannot predict how things will evolve.
“The police they are still using excessive force,” Ho said. “As long as the Hong Kong government keeps on ignoring everything that’s happening and just pretending that it’s OK, these protests will go on — I’m quite sure of that.”
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and