Seventy years ago today, Mao Zedong stood over Tiananmen Square to declare the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. While he unified the country after years of civil and foreign wars, an estimated 70 million would die as a result of famine and political brutality.
Mao’s famous address “let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend” heralded a campaign to promote open debate and tolerance. However, when posters appeared calling for democratic elections, the “Anti-Rightist” persecution was unleashed.
Today, under the de-facto rule of President Xi Jinping, who has changed the constitution to make himself chairman for life, brutality is a daily reality for the people of Hong Kong.
Posters calling for democracy are papered over by government agents and supporters. Protest leaders are jailed for up to 10 years under Hong Kong’s vague “public order ordinances”, a hangover from colonial rules, which the former governor Lord Patten labelled “open to abuse”. There have been savage beatings of demonstrators, aid personnel and journalists, attacks with batons, and the misuse of water cannon, tear gas, the firing of live rounds and mass arrests by the Hong Kong police force.
“Surely, it is now time to declare that China is in breach of its international obligations, and prepare a comprehensive response using all the political, economic and moral levers available.”
A small minority of protesters have been guilty of violence too, which I condemn. But an investigation by City University Hong Kong has documented collusion between government supporters and Triad gangs who were paid to beat protesters and bystanders indiscriminately. There are also undercover police agents masquerading as protesters in different rallies.
The origin of the protests was a reaction to a proposed Extradition Bill, which would have seen residents removed to China and tried under a penal system that has no independent judiciary, something Amnesty International reports as being heavily reliant on confessions obtained through torture.
Although the bill has finally been withdrawn, the pain and fear of ordinary HongKongers continues to worsen, with daily examples of state repression broadcast in the global media – when it is not censored by the authorities. The root cause is the lack of democracy in the territory, which means that the unelected Government will never be held to account for its brutal treatment of its own citizens.
Despite this, the current pro-democracy movement protests have continued for over 100 days. An umbrella symbol adopted by protesters as a defence mechanism to tear gas and water cannons and illustrating the different shades of political opinion that have been brought together in actions uniting two million people in a state of just seven million. It is also a defence against the torrential rain in Hong Kong, something we can all identify with in Britain. Imagine the ramifications if nearly a third of British people took part in demonstrations for over three months?
We have a special responsibility to Hong Kong, given our 150-year historic role (which was far from democratically perfect to say the least). Given unique protections under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty lodged with the UN, Hong Kong residents were promised a range of civil rights including “freedom of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association”. Many of those residents have British (overseas) passports, although no right to live in the UK; countless people do not have any such protection.
It is hard to see how that treaty has not been breached. A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry in 2017 declared that it is “null and void” and “does not have any binding effect”, but the British Government is yet to make a clear statement that China is in breach of that treaty, and, as such, of international law.
On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, told the Conservative conference that the UK “won’t look the other way when the people of Hong Kong are beaten indiscriminately on commuter trains for exercising the right to peaceful protest.”
Surely, it is now time to declare that China is in breach of its international obligations, and prepare a comprehensive response using all the political, economic and moral levers available.
Stephen Twigg MP is Chair of the House of Commons International Development Committee and Member of Parliament for Liverpool West Derby.