When I relocated back to Hong Kong some twenty years ago, I had high hopes for “one country, two systems” to remain intact. I was also hoping that China would become more democratic one day, giving its people freedom of movement and expression, just like any “great powers” would do. Fast forward 20 years, and into the year of 2020, the human rights condition in China has deteriorated further. The long arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can be felt all over Hong Kong as well, and the people in this once dynamic city are just disheartened by the current political situation.

To some, Hong Kong is already finished - the recent high-profile arrests of pro-democracy activists across different age groups have proven that the CCP has lost its patience with Hong Kong. To defy the convention of a fair trial or procedural justice, the authoritarian regime’s new tactic is to lock up the opposition voice first, even before a court trial. Sad to say, the new authoritarian Hong Kong is now ruled by fear and decree.

Under the directive of Beijing, Carrie Lam, a self-professed non-stop working machine, an unforgiving “hardliner” and also the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, has taken up the leading role, at least on the surface, to crush all opposition voices. In just five months, since the National Security Law (NSL) was enacted, our city has been almost unrecognizable: pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong now are either in self-exile, detained, serving prison terms, or waiting for a court trial date.

Carrie Lam might just be the “terminator” on paper - the fact is that she is not in charge anymore, but how can she profess it? Beijing calls all the shots, and she follows the orders. Lam and her cabinet are pushing Hong Kong into the Armageddon. Hong Kong is also going through some form of a political “blood transfusion”, and an exodus of Hong Kong people is also part of the calculation of the CCP. The policy of indoctrinating people to “love the country”, or sing the national anthem with “all your heart and soul” just doesn’t work.

In fact, Lam is orchestrating a modern-day ethnic cleansing exercise. It becomes more and more obvious that “writing off” one or two generations of young people in Hong Kong is quite ok now, as we have witnessed the harsh sentences handed down to the three young activists: Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam.

Communist China is unforgiving, beyond doubt. To please the Beijing masters, the Hong Kong technocrats, together with the military-like police, have turned the city upside down in five months by a hardline approach. Over 10,000 people have been arrested since last year; some of the cases brought to court were unwarranted and ultimately rescinded, while others not. The convicted are now serving prison terms. It is also alarming and heartbreaking to witness there are so many political prisoners across all ages in Hong Kong.

The National Security Law (NSL) is an evil but convenient tool to punish anyone before he/she is tried in a Hong Kong court. As we have witnessed, since the imposition of it five months ago, anyone alleged to have breached the NSL has been locked up for months now, even before a trial. The NSL judges are cherry-picked by the Chief Executive, but ultimately by Beijing - how can one expect a fair trial? I doubt the Hong Kong people who got arrested for violating the NSL could get away from it easily. It is a political game, and communist China plays well to hold its own people hostage, which is an absurd way to gain attention or bargain for anything in the international community.

Next Media founder Jimmy Lai has been charged with fraud and detained for a court hearing in April 2021. He cannot write his weekly column and show up on Twitter anymore. The bigger concern is: would he be free again? Would Beijing allow Next Digital to operate in the longer term? Beijing’s tactics of locking up an opposition voice before a trial and the very essence of de-facto shutting a business down by brute force are quite scary. No more uncertainty, things become more crystal clear: any claim that the NSL will bring more “stability” to the city is just a lie. Hopes are now shattered – the evil law is used to crush all opposing voices.

Anyone with not much of brain power can also see it clearly: the political suppression and silencing of opposition voices would not end soon. Those who care about Hong Kong would be alarmed and surprised to see that Jimmy Lai was not remanded on bail out of some dubious fraud charges. But what will come next? Hong Kong is becoming more like China now, and the “rule of law with Chinese characteristics” means that foreign corporations setting up businesses here would have little protection “under the law” – be it protection for human rights or companies, which ultimately translates into asset protection.

At this juncture, the international community’s stern rebuke to the harsh punishment on the young activists or the locking up of media tycoon Jimmy Lai is not enough. The free world has to hold communist China accountable, or else there will be more harassment from the totalitarian state. Take the remarks made by Cong Peiwu, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, as an example. He has recently said that “if the Canadian side really cares about the stability and the prosperity in Hong Kong, and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong, and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong…”. Ultimately, this Chinese ambassador with “wolf-warrior” mentality was warning Canada that granting asylum to Hong Kong residents fleeing from communist China for the social movement last year could have “serious consequences”. Is detainment of Canadians living in Hong Kong a possible way of punishment? Should Li Ka Shing, the wealthiest Chinese Canadian living in Hong Kong, be concerned?

I hold a stronger believe now that a cold war is brewing between communist China and the democratic world, and Hong Kong is unfortunately caught in the middle. Carrie Lam could put Hong Kong in a self-destruction mode in order to “win the war”. Whatever Beijing has done has already scared a lot of people stiff. All the evil doings over the last five months - disqualifying democratically elected legislators, arresting democracy activists, and postponing the LegCo election - will just backfire. And we all know that things in Hong Kong will get worse, before it gets better. So help us God.

(Edward Chin (錢志健) runs a family office. Chin was formerly Country Head of a UK publicly listed hedge fund, the largest of its kind measured by asset under management. Outside the hedge funds space, Chin is Convenor of 2047 Hong Kong Monitor and a Senior Advisor of Reporters Without Borders (RSF, HK & Macau). Chin studied speech communication at the University of Minnesota, and received his MBA from the University of Toronto. Twitter: edwardckchin Youtube: Ed Chin Channel Facebook.com/edckchin Email: [email protected])

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