Hong Kong’s government, which has become an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, just turbocharged its program of authoritarian repression with the passage of a new security law. Now the question is what America will do about it.
These new national-security measures, under Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, grant the authorities expansive, new powers to crack down on what they characterize as sedition, espionage, foreign interference, theft of state secrets, and more.
Their approval by the city’s legislature this week was unsurprising. Pro-Beijing leaders of the city first tried to pass Article 23 legislation in 2003 but were beaten back until this week, when it passed unanimously. The separate 2020 national-security law imposed on the city by Beijing eviscerated dissent in Hong Kong and strangled its civil society — and pro-democracy movement. Beijing’s biggest Hong Konger opponents have all either been jailed or forced into exile.
While Beijing had already exerted its control over the city, the new law passed this week will help it tighten its grip. Hong Kong still possesses the façade of a fair judicial system when in fact pro-China judges run the show. The Article 23 measures grant the Beijing-controlled leaders of the city another legal tool through which they can manipulate the system to destroy any remaining pockets of dissent, no matter how small or insignificant.
Western business executives who still think that Hong Kong is a fine environment in which to operate should take note. Article 23 marks the official adoption by Hong Kong of General Secretary Xi’s widening internal security crackdown. The sorts of business activities that are considered normal in other parts of the world have now been criminalized under Article 23’s state-secrets provisions. How can foreign businesses avoid triggering that law? No one knows. It’s not entirely far-fetched to say that the fate of Qin Gang, Li Shangfu, and other disappeared CCP officials could also befall U.S. executives in Hong Kong. At the very least, foreign businesses can expect to experience the sort of raids that have become more common on the mainland.
This is a serious matter, but Washington is barely treating it as such, beyond the typical expressions of concern. On Tuesday, the State Department hinted that it might respond with more than a statement of disapproval. But in recent months, the White House has seemed more preoccupied with its China détente program than with responding to specific instances of the CCP’s threatening and repressive behavior. Accordingly, 2021 is the last time that the U.S. sanctioned Chinese officials for the Hong Kong crackdown. When Hong Kong imposed bounties for the arrests of pro-democracy advocates abroad, including U.S. citizens and residents, the State Department responded with condemnation, not sanctions.
There are numerous steps that the U.S. should have taken long ago. In addition to going after Hong Kong’s political leadership, it can impose sanctions on the judges who preside over Hong Kong’s kangaroo courts; there are lists that have been drawn up by members of Congress and Hong Konger advocates in exile.
Another obvious response is to force the closure of Hong Kong’s specialized diplomatic outposts in the United States. The continued existence of these Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices only contributes to the persistence of the myth that the city has any substantial autonomy from the mainland. HKETOs are merely an additional vector for CCP propaganda that is willingly embraced by U.S. officials. Hong Kong is China, and it should be represented by that country’s diplomatic missions. Washington should expel the superfluous Chinese personnel who remain here under the HKETO banner.
This response must be serious and proportionate to the egregious nature of the party’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Anything less would be another sign of weakness in the face of Xi’s totalitarian push for control of the region.