Hong Kong’s Freedom and Democracy are Vital to the World

It was recently reported that the fight for Hong Kong’s autonomy faces a grim future on the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover to Communist China. Instead of bringing the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) closer to Western democracy, the handover of Hong Kong has become a bitter lesson in the CCP’s desperate pursuit of global hegemony.

The report said that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration specifies that Hong Kong, as a special administrative region – part of the larger county of China, but with its own separate, democratic system that was developed over a century and a half of British colonial rule. However, since 2019, the CCP has accelerated its crackdown on democratic freedoms and institutions in Hong Kong by installing pro-communist politicians and passing the National Security Law, which criminalizes so-called “terrorism, secession and subversion of the state” and imposes a maximum penalty of a lifetime in prison.

According to a report released in March by the Congressional Research Service, more than 10,000 people were arrested during demonstrations against the National Security Law, more than 2,300 people were accused of violating the law’s provisions, and 200 were convicted.

The CCP’s suppression of the Hong Kong movement is a cautionary tale for everyone worldwide. A city with 7.5 million people may have all the freedoms and privileges the West takes for granted that can be stripped away overnight, and this crackdown does not end at the Chinese or Hong Kong border. “One country, two systems” is a fabrication of the CCP. The United States and the international community should continue to be concerned about the CCP’s crackdown on Hong Kong, which remains a base of resistance to the CCP.