The Washington Post Is Tarnishing The Courts Of Hong Kong

 

moon  of alabama

The Washington Post invents some crude reasoning to explain a new aggressive anti-China move by the Biden administration.

Biden, testing Xi, will bar Hong Kong’s leader from economic summit

SAN DIEGO — The White House has decided it will bar Hong Kong’s top government official from attending a major economic summit in the United States this fall, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the matter, in the latest test of President Biden’s bid to reset relations with China.

The summit in questions is the yearly meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to which 21 Pacific Rim entities belong. China, Taiwan (Chinese Taipan) and Hong Kong are members since 1991. The location of the summit rotates through the membership entities.

Chief Executive John Lee, along with 10 other Hong Kong and Chinese officials, was placed under sanctions by Washington in 2020 after implementing a national security law, imposed by Beijing, that enabled the targeting of pro-democracy leaders, tarnished the reputation of the courts and earned international condemnation as leaders sought to silence dissent.

Lee, then Hong Kong’s security chief, was elevated last year to chief executive, handpicked by Beijing to continue what critics say is a broader campaign of repression in the once-semiautonomous city.

Let me first take issue with the description of the effects of the national security law, specifically the claim that it 'tarnished the reputation of the courts'.

Courts do not make laws but use the law to make judgments. How then could a new law or a change of a law have tarnished the courts?

A recent judgment by the a Hong Kong court proves that the Hong Kong security law has not done that at all.

The official hymn of Hong Kong is the Chinese national anthem “March of the Volunteers”. After the riots in Hong Kong which led to the implementation of the national security law some protest backers came up with a new one called “Glory to Hong Kong”. (They probably consulted with Bandera followers who suggested 'Slava Ukraini' which means 'Glory to Ukraine'.

Searching Google and some other such service for `Hong Kong national anthem' brings up the protester hymn. This has led to some embarrassing moments when it was unintentionally played at international sport events.

Any use of the song in Hong Kong is prohibited and can lead to criminal prosecution. But the justice department in Hong Kong wanted to add a civil injunction against any one who makes the protest song available.

But a judge, hand-selected by Lee for national security issues, took the new law down:

A Hong Kong court has dismissed the justice secretary’s request to ban the promotion of a protest song popular during the 2019 anti-government unrest, questioning the effectiveness of the move.

In blocking the injunction bid, the High Court on Friday said the publication and distribution of “Glory to Hong Kong” was already punishable under existing laws, adding a ban might not compel internet search giant Google and other technology firms to take down the tune.
...
Justice minister Paul Lam Ting-kwok lodged the application last month in a bid to bar anyone from promoting the protest tune through “broadcasting, performing, ­printing, publishing, selling, ­offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing in any way”.

Authorities believed the ban could provide greater leverage in demanding that internet service providers remove content related to the song.

But Mr Justice Anthony Chan Kin-keung said in his 30-page judgment that the government’s expectations were misplaced.
...
While acknowledging Lee’s view that the song would undermine national security if it were allowed to spread further, Chan rejected the argument that the court should defer to the executive branch on the merits of the intended ban just because it related to the country’s safety.

“It is too sweeping a statement,” he said. “Here, the court is asked to exercise its exceptional powers which affect innocent third parties. The court cannot abdicate its responsibilities.”

Chan pointed to the city’s “extensive and robust” criminal law system in questioning the effectiveness of a civil injunction in deterring offences.

Now again, has the new national security law in Hong Kong really 'tarnished the reputation of the courts'?

To me its seems it has not. In fact the court ruled against a misuse of the 'national security' argument in much sharper form than U.S. courts would probably do.

It was the Washington Post which, by making the claim, actually tried to 'tarnish the reputation of the courts' in Hong Kong.

That Chief Executive John Lee was put under U.S. sanction is one of the typical abuses U.S. foreign policies create. It is also not the real reason for keeping him away from the APEC summit.

What the Biden administration really intended with this move was to piss off President Xi of China:

The snub by the United States, which in November will host the annual summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders in San Francisco, comes in the midst of a tenuous thaw in the two powers’ frosty bilateral relationship. It could, some analysts say, induce Chinese leader Xi Jinping to skip the APEC summit — where a meeting with Biden has been anticipated.

If Biden, as the Washington Post's opening claimed, really has made a bid to reset relations with China, he would not have taken such a step. One does not try to find better relations by constantly acting against the interests of the other side.

To keep Lee away from the summit is one of the typical kindergarten moves the Biden administration is becoming famous for. The cumulation of such moves under Blinken and Biden has created a strong block of countries that stand united in opposition to U.S. policies and to a large number of the rest of the world developing more sympathy for them.

As Kishore Mahbubani once told his listeners during a speech in Harvard:

The era of western domination of world history was a 200 year aberration, it's coming to an end.

As a result of that you've got to learn to understand non-western perspectives in the world."

"As someone who travels to 30, 40 countries a year, when I come to the US and I go to my hotel room and turn on the TV, I feel like I've been cut off from the rest of the world.

The insularity of the American discourse is actually frightening ...

It is time for the U.S. to grow up.

Posted by b on July 29, 2023 at 16:21 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/07/the-washington-post-is-tarnishing-the-courts-of-hong-kong.html#more