Wall Street Journal - The China Vise Tightens on Hong Kong

Wall Street Journal

OPINION

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The China Vise Tightens on Hong Kong

Elections are cancelled, protesters are arrested, and a professor is fired.

By the Editorial Board

August 2, 2020

Day by day, China’s Communist Party is squeezing the free breath out of Hong Kong. On Friday Beijing’s local factotum used the pandemic as an excuse to postpone elections for a year, and dissenters are being arrested or fired.

The Legislative Council elections were scheduled for September, but Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked emergency powers to cancel them. She claims there is “absolutely no political agenda” behind the postponement, but Beijing clearly fears the will of Hong Kong voters.

In district council elections last November they voted in record numbers, and pro-democracy candidates won in a landslide. In Legislative Council primaries in July, more than 600,000 participated despite warnings that the unofficial vote may violate the new national-security law.

On Thursday the Hong Kong government disqualified at least 12 pro-democracy candidates from even running for legislative seats in 2020. Authorities said they believed the candidates would “indiscriminately vote down” pro-Beijing legislation, oppose the new national-security law that effectively outlaws dissent in Hong Kong, or collude with foreign governments, among other excuses. In other words, standing up for Hong Kong’s freedoms or calling international attention to Beijing’s methods is now disqualifying.

Democracy supporters Joshua Wong and Gwyneth Ho were among those disqualified, and so were incumbent lawmakers Dennis Kwok and Alvin Yeung, both defenders of Hong Kong’s independent judiciary. After a referral from Ms. Lam, Beijing will decide how to resolve legal issues created by the election’s postponement. You can guess how that will turn out.

On Wednesday Hong Kong police arrested four students, ages 16 to 21, under the new national-security law. They are not well-known figures in the democracy movement, but the maximum sentence for violating the new law is life in prison. The obvious goal is to terrify Hong Kongers about the cost of dissent.

Authorities are also moving fast to stamp out protest in Hong Kong’s schools and impose “patriotic education.” Last week the University of Hong Kong fired Benny Tai, a law professor who helped lead the 2014 democratic Umbrella Movement. Mr. Tai said after his dismissal that “academic staff in education institutions in Hong Kong are no longer free to make controversial statements to the general public about politically or socially controversial matters.”

In recent weeks lesser-known teachers have been reprimanded for participating in last year’s protests, and some haven’t had their contracts renewed. Books by democratic authors are disappearing from Hong Kong’s public libraries. The thought police are in charge.

All of this violates the treaty China signed with the British in 1984 promising legal autonomy for Hong Kong until 2047. Hong Kong is dying as a free society, and America should offer its 7.5 million talented and entrepreneurial people a refuge with green cards and open arms.