China Chews Up and Spits Out, Hong Kong By James Reed
This is China’s next test, as it shows the West who is boss:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16076/china-devours-hong-kong
“China's imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong today is yet another attempt by the country's communist rulers to make a blatant power grab by exploiting the coronavirus pandemic. Ever since the deadly Covid-19 virus was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year, China's ruling communist party (CCP) has been busily exploiting the pandemic to further Beijing's strategic goals. The Chinese have, for example, been particularly busy in the South China Sea where, apart from harassing less powerful neighbours such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, Beijing last month unilaterally passed measures to strengthen its control over a number of disputed territories, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands, where China's People's Liberation Army has constructed a network of illegal military bases. Beijing has most lately turning its attention to the former British colony of Hong Kong where, in the face of stiff opposition from the territory's 7.5 million inhabitants, the CCP aims to pass a new set of security laws that critics say will severely undermine Hong Kong's quasi-autonomous status. Under the terms of the Basic Law agreement negotiated between Britain and China when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kongers have retained a number of basic rights denied to other Chinese citizens, such as freedoms of speech, the press and assembly, and a judiciary system independent of mainland China.
China's communist dictatorship has never been comfortable with the special privileges enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong, an arrangement known as "one country, two systems." It is for this reason that Xi Jinping, China's tyrannical ruler, is seeking to impose a range of new security measures that, if implemented, will severely curtail Hong Kongers basic liberties. Under Mr Xi's proposal, passed today by China's puppet parliament, the National People's Congress, Beijing imposed a raft of new security measures that will completely undermine the independence of Hong Kong's own legislature. The new measures will apparently be announced in a few weeks, … "In China they never really define what exactly is 'national security'. So the law could change according to political expediency or political necessity," Johannes Chan, a legal scholar in Hong Kong, told public broadcaster RTHK, according to The Guardian. The measures will doubtless allow Beijing control over issues such as secession, foreign influence and terrorism which, in the view of pro-democracy activists, is little more than a blatant attempt by Beijing to suppress the anti-government protest movement that brought the territory to a standstill last year. The Chinese move had prompted a fresh round of anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong, with the security forces being accused by Amnesty International of carrying out "alarming" attacks on peaceful protesters.”
Hong Kong’s freedom is gone. It is a sample of what is coming as the enraged bear flexes its claws in the New World Chinese Order.
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