US and allies should warn China over Hong Kong kidnap threats
Tom Rogan
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Alongside his claim that communist China is a democracy, one of Xi Jinping’s more absurd assertions is that Beijing never interferes in the internal affairs of other nations. This is a patent falsity evinced by China’s expansive intellectual property theft, territorial imperialism, and election interference.
Another example of China’s interference in the affairs of other nations is its claimed right to apply extraterritorial justice against political activists living abroad. On Thursday, the Beijing-directed Hong Kong police force issued arrest warrants for five more people living in the United States and the United Kingdom. They are accused of breaching China’s national security law for Hong Kong, which restricts criticism of the Communist Party and efforts to advocate democracy.
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Responding to British criticism of the arrest warrants, a Chinese foreign minister spokeswoman declared, “We strongly deplore and firmly oppose certain countries’ flagrant slandering … ” of the national security law. She added that the arrest warrants “have extraterritorial effect.” In July, a Hong Kong government spokesman similarly declared that “fugitives should not have any delusion that they could evade their legal liabilities by absconding from Hong Kong.” Alongside $128,000 bounties placed on these five activists and others living abroad, China is clearly implying a threat to engage in kidnapping.
Two further points bear noting.
First, China doesn’t just operate secret police stations abroad via which to harass Chinese expatriates. Under the auspices of its Ministry of State Security intelligence service (the leader of which is shown in the header photograph for this article), Beijing has a long-standing record of kidnapping dissidents from abroad and then throwing them into mainland gulags.
Because of Hong Kong’s particular political sensitivity for Beijing, the Chinese government is willing to act aggressively on this topic in ways that it would be reticent to do so on its other concerns. In the U.K. last October, the Chinese Consulate general led his diplomats in attacking peaceful Hong Kong activists in front of the police and the media. The chief diplomat did so because his understanding of party interests motivated him to believe his aggression would make him a better public servant. The benefits of aggression against activists are seen by party officials to outweigh the risks of diplomatic disrepute. Put simply, the threat of kidnappings, even from U.S. soil, is real.
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Second, there’s the instructive quality of why China is targeting these people. It’s because they have challenged the Chinese Communist Party’s claim that it has absolute moral authority over Chinese lives. Those facing China’s bounties aren’t terrorists who have killed Chinese citizens. Nothing of the sort. Instead, they have hosted pro-democracy news shows and advocated political freedom. Beijing hates that they refuse to be cowed, as one activist again showed on Thursday. Such free speech underlines the Chinese Communist Party’s organizing premise that all Chinese live happily under the party’s beneficent majesty.
The U.S. and its democratic allies cannot accept the kidnapping or associated intimidation of its residents. It should make clear that if any kidnapping plot is detected, China will face collective diplomatic expulsions.