Exchange for Support (Lee Yee)
There was one other major world event on Jul 1, apart from the promulgation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong. A referendum was held in Russia on the revision of the country’s Constitution.
In the Newscast on the night before last, CCTV broadcast a key feature about the telephone dialogue between Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin. Putin expressed firm support from Russia for China's efforts to maintain national security in Hong Kong. Xi mentioned the Russian constitutional amendment, endorsed by a majority vote in a referendum, which will allow Putin’s term as the president to last until 2036. Xi reaffirmed China’s firm support for Russia's commitment to a development direction that is appropriate for the nation.
Not a word was uttered by China on Russia’s celebration of its 160-year occupation of Vladivostok. Instead, the compliments on Putin’s uninterrupted re-election were dished out in exchange for Russia’s support for the National Security Law.
Although there are 53 countries on the United Nations Human Rights Commission (and reportedly 20 more) that support Hong Kong National Security Law, once all the names of these countries are unfolded, it is not hard to spot that none of them are countries that would likely attract Chinese nor Hong Kong people to invest, study, or live in. There is not a single great power amongst them. However, though opposition to the law has only been voiced out by 27 countries, all of them are influential with significant leverage on world affairs. Of course, among them the most adamant is the United States, which has withdrawn from the Human Rights Commission. Now that Russia is at last joining the Chinese bandwagon, the situation looks a little less awkward for China.
On July 1, the referendum on the constitutional amendments in Russia drew to a close. 78% of the voters supported the amendments, the most important one of which is the "removal of the upper limit of the presidential term in the ‘re-election’ clause”. That is to say, all the presidential terms before the amendment takes effect will be revoked. Everything will be back to zero. Putin's term of office will start all over again. According to the new constitution, Putin can be re-elected as the president until 2036. He will have stayed in the highest power for the longest in Russian history, even surpassing the reign of Peter the Great.
Like Xi Jinping, who forced through the National Security Law for Hong Kong, Putin did not receive any blessings from other major international powers for his feat. There was no strong opposition because after all it went through a referendum. The United States and the European Union, however, were skeptical about the voting process, questioning whether there was coercion of voters, or repeated voting.
Russia's deletion of the presidential re-election regulations is analogous to China's deletion of the presidential re-election regulations in the year before last. With both world powers ruled by lifetime leaders, concerns about such a situation have been raised in international public opinion.
Despite all the twists and turns throughout history, in China as well other countries, everything boiled down to power struggles that basically stemmed from succession schemes amongst the most powerful, which in turn came with a lifetime tenure amongst top leaders. A lifetime tenure for the most powerful led to absolute power that bred absolute corruption, which is the root cause of all political complexities in human society.
All the struggles in the royal courts originated from the inheritance of power. The potential heirs, not the sons, of an emperor were the focuses. There was no place for normal family intimacies amongst sons, daughters, siblings, wives and concubines. Family relationships were built on associations with the potential heirs. For the past 70 years in the Soviet Union, the severe suppression of the people by the dictatorship, and all the brutal struggles have all been due to the inheritance of power at the highest level. During Mao Zedong’s rule, every single one of the never ending political movements of class struggles could be traced back to the inheritance of power at the top. Ordinary people were the victims as a result.
After millennia in the dark ages, it was not until 1776 when the United States became independent that the problem of inheritance of power at the highest level was basically solved. Finally, people could vote to authorize the succession of power in a legal manner, without bloodshed and contention. A system was established to ensure the separation of the three powers, a multi-party system, freedom of news reporting, speech, religion, and association, etc. as checks and balances of the highest power so as to prevent absolute corruption that came with absolute power.
In 1800, there were only three democratic countries in the world. By 2015, the number of countries authorized by the peoples’ votes increased to 130. According to Churchill, ‘democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ In all those that have been tried, plebs were inevitably victimized in the power struggles.
Deng Xiaoping might also have understood that power inheritance is the root cause of all political complexities. That was why he laid down the system for naming the heir for the generation after the immediate next. This system achieved a certain period of social stability. What is the impact of abandoning this approach? Putting China aside, what we saw in Hong Kong was the changes in the period from the Causeway Bay Bookstore incident to the implementation of the Hong Kong version of National Security Law.
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Don’t Be Naive! Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is Standing on the Side Against Human Civilization
Peaceful world order after WWII had been established upon the philosophy worshiping multilateralism. The cultural basis supporting such multilateralism contained an imagination believing in the ultimate good of the respect for diversity.
The Rise of China and the Naivete of EU
However, as time progressed into the Post-Cold War era of the 90's, globalization in trade became the dominant trend. Following the global embrace of multilateralism and respect for diversity, it was believed that China would have been influenced by open and positive values once she had participated in this big family of global trade. Indeed, China took advantage of its role as the "world factory" and gained a huge economic leap forward. After China joined the WTO in 2000, within seventeen to eighteen years, China had grown nine-fold compared in terms of its aggregate economic volume. Furthermore, it surpassed Germany in 2005 and Japan between 2009 and 2010, becoming the second-largest economy in the world.
In particular, due to the global financial crisis derived from the subprime mortgage in 2007 and Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in 2008 in the United States, the PIGGS countries turned into victims in Europe. China thus took advantage of this crisis to expand its power, bridging China’s role as depicted in Hu JinTao's "China's peaceful rise" to that in Xi JinPing's "China dream." Finally, China has revealed its ambition to compete for the position as a world leader and a planner of a new world order. The United States has finally, recently woken up to this nightmare of Xi, who has long intended to use China's almighty economic power to achieve his political agenda and hegemony. Unfortunately, many EU countries who consider themselves as advanced, civilized, pro-human rights and respectful to diversification, such as Germany and France, still fail, or refuse, to see the CCP regime’s true color and remain extremely naive towards it.
Repulsion towards Vulgarity, Tolerance towards Violence
Ironically, the two leading EU countries, Germany and France, prefer a dictatorial emperor, Xi, over Trump elected by the Americans with their ballots. The two countries do not shy away from showing them disgusted by Trump’s vulgar behaviors, but reluctantly show intolerance towards Xi’s cruelty and dictatorship. As a result, the EU countries develop inconceivable and mysterious stubbornness: they loudly criticize countries practicing death penalty based on their own judicial system; however, they are generous and subdued when it comes to the violence happening in HongKong where the HongKong police and Chinese GongAn basically bypass all applicable, or reasonable, laws. We should find this contrast deeply disturbing.
Seeing CCP through the eyes of Mao
In fact, these european countries and the western world are deluded by the so-called “respect for diversity.” Let’s use the wisdom of the CCP’s spiritual leader, Mao Ze Dong, as a framework to rethink this diversity concept in civilization. In his work “Correct Handling of Contradictions Between People,” published in 1957, Mao clearly classified social contradictions into “contradictions of two different natures”: “contradictions between ourselves and the enemy” and “internal contradictions among the people”. Contradictions between ourselves and the enemy are antagonistic, for example the contradictions between the exploiting and the exploited classes; but contradictions among people is non-antagonistic. Therefore, the former can not be mediated and resolved, but the latter one can be. Mao further advocated that contradictions between ourselves and the enemy should be resolved by dictatorship, but contradictions between the people should be resolved by a method of “cooperation-criticism-cooperation.” In other words, incompatible contradictions between ourselves and the enemy can only be solved by suppression, but internal contradictions can be softened by cooperation.
Civilization and CCP - Two Incompatible Conflicting Systems
It is time for us to recognize that CCP, a sovereign of authoritarianism and digital dictatorship, should not have been regarded as a representation of the diversity of human civilization. Diversity should be defined based on a founded premise, i.e., a premise confined with certain agreements and consensus, necessary and beneficial for composing diversity. In fact, the value CCP stands for is against the universally accepted values of the world, just like the “incompatible contradictions between ourselves and the enemy”, as Mao said. As long as the existence of the CCP regime continues, human civilization will continue to be persecuted. It can be seen in the current situation of Hong Kong, where China approved the new bill of national security, thereby destroying the remaining freedom guaranteed to Hong Kongers, and assigned the “secret” police gangs to enforce the so-called “justice”.
To see the contracting natures of civilization and the CCP regime, we make an analogy with food. Normally, we respect other people’s choice for food. For instance, Ann prefers rice, Bob prefers noodles, John is a meat lover, Mary only eats seafood, etc. Although those four people have different choices of what they like to eat, they respect each other’s choices of food. However, when Daniel comes over and tells the group that he prefers to eat faeces and needs to be respected for his preference, we can start to see the ridiculousness in it. At first, the four people think eating faeces is a personal choice for Daniel, and Daniel can do whatever he/she wants as long as he/she does it at his/her home. The problem rises when Daniel starts to force other people to eat faeces, while the other four people think faeces is inedible, and should never be served on a plate.
The food analogy tells us that the CCP regime is inherently against human civilization. As a reasonable human being could not categorize feces as food, we should not be tricked to believe that the authoritarian regime of China can blend in and contribute to human civilization. The CCP regime is incompatible to human civilization just like we should not consider to eat a meal with feces in it. As the master of CCP, Mao, admitted, one can never resolve the contradiction between the authoritarian regime of China and human civilization. The existence of Chinese authoritarian regime is a symbol for deprivation of human civilization. For us to maintain and preserve human civilization, Chinese authoritarian regime must be eradicated. There is no room for the coexistence of the CCP regime and human civilization.
Draw a Bottom Line to the Respect for Diversity
Therefore, among western countries, the United States have started or should start to realize that although diversity needs to be respected and tolerated, a reasonable bottom line should be drawn to such respect. Like what I have mentioned above, rice, noodles, meat, seafood and so on should be viewed as food; however, as we can all reasonably agree, feces should not be a part of the league. The United States is now acting to exclude “feces” from the democratic league and draw a bottom line for respect-worthy diversity. However, leading EU countries are still trapped in their fancy, unconditional acceptance to “respect for diversity.” Such respect is hypocritical, empty and baseless. Now, you should be able to understand why leftards in the EU would vigorously criticize death sentences executed under a legitimate judicial system but remain indifferent to the CCP regime’s merciless, relentless and oppressive killings. Namely, they simply set a wrong premise, including feces as an eligible option for “diversity.” As for those who embrace the CCP regime because of economic benefits, they do not even deserve to be viewed as EU leftards, but merely gold diggers in the EU.
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【大使館發言人批評意大利國會邀請我作聽證 外交部長反駁斥捍衛言論自由】
感謝意大利國會議員邀請,日前我藉視像通話方式,參與意大利國會外交及人權委員會的聽證會,呼籲意大利支持香港實現民主普選,停止出口衝鋒車予香港警察,亦鼓勵他們參考《香港人權民主法案》醞釀制裁機制。
聽證結束以後,本來當地關注尚算有限,但中國駐意大利使館發言人高調發表聲明批評意大利國會議員「執意與黃之鋒搞視頻通話,為港獨分子撐腰」,就令到香港議題再度進佔輿論版面。
根據「中國外交Bingo紙」,聲明內文中了至少9個關鍵詞,包括斥我「竭力 #顛倒黑白,#美化暴力,詆毁一國兩制……是個徹頭徹尾的港獨 #跳樑小丑」,還有「#極其錯誤、#不負責任」,表示 #強烈不滿、#堅決反對,呼籲有關人士 #尊重主權(???),多做有利中意友好與合作事宜,這只反映中國外交系統何等「玻璃心」。
據意大利記者告知,中國駐意大利大使館發言人的取態,導致意大利外交部長及國會議員先後回應,表明捍衛言論自由,反對中國政府阻礙交流;同時,政界與傳媒亦深深體會到中共威權擴張的可怕,相信此舉只會有助香港令國際社會明白,為何與香港同行就是捍衛自由。
作用曾遭中共駐多國使館均曾批評人士,我已對一切批評見怪不怪,也由衷感謝中國外交系統的批評,往往本來聽證會也沒有甚麼關注,但只要大使館發言批評,就令到香港議題再度進佔輿論版面。我會繼續努力,讓世界看見香港,與香港同行。
最後,附上自己的國會發言全文給各位細閱:
Thursday, 28 November 2019
Italy Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Testimony by Joshua Wong
Good afternoon,
May I first express our heartfelt gratitude to the Senate’s generous invitation to give testimony before the honourable Senators and Congressmen, even though I’m not allowed to fly to Italy. The very moment I was rejected by the court to travel, I felt that it was even worse than deciding my sentences in jail as I would not be able to meet with friends in Europe to explain our cause for democracy and freedom.
Implications of Local Election result
As you may aware of Hong Kong’s local election record-high turnout, almost 3 million Hong Kong people, in a community and policy-based election, had cast ballot to express our discontent to the government and huge distrust to the Beijing authorities. Democrats went up to 385 seats, but the largest pro-Beijing party DAB, who owned 119 seats in the last term, had reduced to 21 seats.
The significance of this election to the world is that HK's current political crisis must be resolved by political solution, instead of policing force. The implications of this election are more than the number of seats in the council, but a sharp political message to the world that Hong Kong people stand with fellow protestors, and our resolve to free elections and a thoroughly independent investigation on police brutality. These humble demands are denied by China since 1997.
Civil Liberties Denied
Unfortunately, I have the most frequent encounters of civil liberties deprivation recently. At first, I went protesting against the controversial extradition bill, exercising my freedom to assembly. The government arrested me and charged me of inciting people taking part in an unlawful assembly. Then I went contesting in this local election, yet the government banned me from running for office because of my political stance. I turned to international advocacy, planning to fly to Italy explain to friends in Europe our democratic and peaceful cause. Regrettably, the court thought this Senate hearing is not important and rejected my travel application. Following the court decision, it's clear now I'm deprived of the right to election, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly (not allowed to appear on designated area), and freedom of speech. The civil liberties guaranteed in the constitution are however no longer applicable to me.
The principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ is a fragile ruling philosophy defining China-Hong Kong relations, guaranteeing the global financial city its autonomy. But in the past 22 years, Beijing intervened on many fronts already. Since 2014, Hong Kong’s civil society, particularly student leaders, had become the target of revenge in the past 5 years. I was arrested for 3 times, prosecuted and later imprisoned for my leading role in the Umbrella Movement. My colleague, Nathan Law, the youngest Councillor in HK’s history, was unseated and later imprisoned for the same reason. So this time people learnt from the experience and not to rely on particular ‘leading activists’ in order to prevent them from exposing to political prosecution. Besides, In the past three years, altogether Six elected legislators are disqualified for ridiculous reasons and led to an uninvited constitutional re-interpretation by Beijing.
Most recently in last week, Chinese troops, not only ready to be deployed, they have actually deployed soldiers near university area with an excuse to 'clear the barricades' of the streets. It is important to voice out to the global community, which is an attempt to coerce China's aggressive behavior using international pressure.
Trusted and Self-correcting protestors VS Abusive Police Power
In the past five months, I took a lot of interviews from journalists all over the world who are interested in reporting Hong Kong. They often find it difficult to understand why a social movement can be led without a leader, why protestors’ use of force is tolerated by fellow Hong Kong people and whether there is foreign forces behind this movement. Behind all these questions, I would like to appeal to you two messages:
firstly, the police brutality is far more serious than what is reported. Pregnant women also got beaten by police; young female (who is not a protestor) was gang raped inside the police station and many others
Secondly, there is strong and mutual trust among protestors. Certainly, protestors always have different tactical viewpoints. But there are apparently some principles guiding protestors’ decision-making, to name a few: to achieve the five demands, to prevent casualty, to avoid being arrested and to achieve mass support. These principles are essential, although we have suffered a lot of notorious police brutality in the past five months, making us more determined to fight for the five demands in solidarity.
As I mentioned the above, I realise these features are the important elements when practising democracy - mutual trust, transparency, people’s mandate, checks-and-balance. It is just ironic that Hong Kong is far from practising full democracy and free election under the authoritarian rule of Xi Jinping.
Another Frontier: International Advocacy
International advocacy is another frontier that Hong Kong people are keen on taking part in. It is the reason why I find compelled to travel and explain our cause and demands to the world. Before testifying in this committee, I attended an assembly an hour ago to yield for international support and to express our acknowledgement to advocacy efforts on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The bill is signed by the US President today to coerce and prevent further human rights violation in Hong Kong. I also wrote to several Italian papers to share the viewpoints of the protestors during this period. To enhance the understanding of Hong Kong and deteriorating human right situation in China is essential for world leaders to make an informed choice in their collaboration with the Chinese authorities too.
Why Italy should care about Hong Kong?
However, I have to say I'm quite disappointed reading the Italy Foreign Minister’s Luigi Di Maio indifferent remarks on the dire human rights situation in Hong Kong. Prolonged police brutality since June this year, what protestors facing are live round bullets. Not to mention the fact that some Italian car factories like IVECO did play a part in the brutality of Hong Kong police by supplying police vehicles. I believe a responsible state like Italy should take the conscience of human dignity into consideration.
In fact, Hong Kong can serve as a story to learn from. We were unaware of the Chinese regime's intention to gain influence and control over our economy in the early years. And our economy now is to some extent too reliant on China, which makes our battle for freedom and democracy harder. Italy should stay alert to the reliance on Chinese economic interests. There's no free lunch in the world.
Many would say I am over worrying or being too skeptical about China. But the truth is China is known for not playing by the rules and has a notorious track record for its human rights violations. The failure of 'One Country Two Systems' in Hong Kong represents the notorious track record of China not honouring the international treaty signed in 1984. Besides, there are hundreds of thousands of Muslim Uighurs have been detained in camps without trial now. Victims have come forth and said they are forced to take medicines that lead to infertility, young female Uighurs are forced into marriage with Chinese officials to exchange for the safety of their families. 30 years ago, the Chinese Government sent tanks against its own people on the 4th June despite the public and global attention. It almost happened last week in two universities lockdown and it is my view that the international pressure had prevented this massacre from happening.
Possible Actions by Italy
Finally, I understand that Business leaders and politicians worry that if they directly confront China on its human rights abuses, it could jeopardize future deals. Yet it is my humble wish Italy will also be truth-ful to the promises the European Union has made. EU have pledged themselves to defend and advocate for human rights in neighboring countries and the world and promised to never directly or indirectly encourage human rights violations. Italy and the rest of the free world should refrain from turning a blind eye to this.
Our position is clear: HK people are defending not only the civil liberties, democratic values and economic freedom of this international city. Standing up against the largest authoritarian regime after the Cold War, we shall continue our fight for democracy lest HK becomes a police state nor an authoritarian state. I appeal to you to stand with the people of Hong Kong.
Thank you.