by Li Ping

As Tam Tak-chi, vice president of People Power is being charged with sedition and has been refused bail, the corruption case of former Huayuan Real Estate Group Chairman Ren Zhiqiang will begin to be heard today in Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court. The charges of the two cases are different but both are being convicted by speech. Tam has been accused of shouting slogans hundreds of times during demonstrations and while being on street stands, which has caused hatred of the citizens towards the government and Hong Kong Police Force. This was blatantly a political prosecution; Ren has been charged for violating other crimes because he criticized the CCP for concealing the COVID-19 pandemic and Xi Jinping without naming names. It is obvious that under the rules of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong government and the CCP, people can be arbitrarily convicted by speech. Those who show support of Tam and Ren, are practically begging to be equally convicted.

Before the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law (NSL), the public was worried that Hong Kong would be losing freedom of speech and the press. On May 29, while attending the National People’s Congress Hong Kong delegation meeting, Xia Baolong, Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office insisted “convicted by speech” will definitely not be used on Hong Kong NSL; the basic rights of Hong Kong citizens such as freedom of speech and democracy are protected by the Basic Law which will not change because of the new law. But going back on its words is a tradition of the CCP. It has already abandoned the Sino-British Declaration, the Basic Law, the promise of one country, two systems, and universal suffrage. Who doesn’t know the clause of “should respect and protect human rights” within Hong Kong NSL is just to create an illusion?

As early as Jul. 29, when Tony Chung Hon-lam and some other former members of Studentlocalism were arrested because of online posts, Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have already criticized Hong Kong police for convicting people by speech to create a chilling effect. Tam, who has not been deterred, was arrested by Department for Safeguarding National Security for being suspected of violating incitement of the NSL, then later the charge was changed to sedition, which shows the National Security Office uses protecting national security as a decoy to conduct speech and thoughts censorship.

“Convicted by speech” has often be seen in China’s thousand years of history. A typical example would be Liu Xianbin, a dissident who has just been released this year in June after serving his jail sentence. The authority said that he has posted 16 articles on overseas websites to criticize the CCP’s repressive regime and that people are living under “the terrifying ruling of the secret police.” The authority decided he has incited other people to subvert the country’s regime and the socialist system and sentenced him to 10 years jail term. What they have never considered was that, neither have these articles called for the overthrow of the regime by force, nor has anyone been encouraged and taken action.

Tam Tak-chi’s case is the Hong Kong version of Liu Xianbin’s case. Conviction by words by the CCP is no longer confined to the crime of inciting subversion of the state power or regime. Instead, it uses charges such as picking quarrels and provoking trouble, embezzlement, and bribery in order to minimize the relevant public opinions. Ren Zhiqiang, nicknamed “Big Cannon Ren” for his outspoken criticism of the CCP, penned an article criticizing Xi Jinping, implicitly, for failing to fight the epidemic and yet has been bragging about his merits, a total “clown who has been stripped but insists on acting as the emperor”. He was expelled from the party, and charged with four counts of corruption, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and abuse of power by employees of state-owned companies.

Of course, there are the insightful ones within the party who oppose literary inquisition, or speech crime. Hu Deping, the eldest son of Hu Yaobang, the former General-Secretary of the CCP, wrote a piece “On Freedom of Speech” in the 1980s, and posed three reasons why speech cannot be criminalized: First, only those in power can convict others for speech, which violates equality for all before the law; Second, those in power will not question speech that agrees and praises, which encourages flattery in the officialdom. Third, the standard for punishing speech was never used to distinguish right from wrong, but between the enemy from oneself, that is “those who follow me prosper, those who oppose me die.” Just look at how the Carrie Lam administration is censoring textbooks, purging the media, and confounding black and white in the Jul. 21 terrorist attack, such an exemplary demonstration of the saying. How does one refrain from feeling emotional when rereading the essay?

Among the second generation of the CCP, the economist He Xin is also one that is worth pondering. In 2001, he penned a letter to then-Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, saying, “A very deep societal crisis lurks behind today’s superficial songs and dances, highways and skyscrapers.” He bluntly pointed out that this crisis stemmed from a series of policy mistakes under the auspices of Zhu Rongji. Despite the praises received at home and abroad by the leader, “for me, I would rather petition to be criminalized for speech, to be an eternal sinner.”

In China, Xu Zhiyong, Xu Zhangrun, Ren Zhiqiang, Cai Xia, etc., are all asking to be criminalized for speech; in Hong Kong, Tony Chung, Jimmy Lai, Tam Tak-chi, etc., are all asking to be criminalized for speech. If they are found guilty, then all those who support their speech are also to be criminalized for speech, but not as eternal sinners, but eternal trailblazers.

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