CCP’s Crackdown On Hong Kong Raises Alarm To The US And The West

The Hill recently reported that the fight for Hong Kong’s autonomy faces a grim future on the 25th anniversary of the territory’s handover back to the Communist China from the United Kingdom.

Since July 1, 1997, the failed experiment seeking to bring the CCP closer toward Western liberal democracies has instead served as a painful lesson in Beijing’ s determined pursuit of total control. This raises alarm to the United States and the West.

China’s President Xi Jinping (right) swears-in Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee at a ceremony in Hong Kong on July 1, 2022. (Photo Source: Bloomberg)

The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration drew a bottom line for the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. The “Declaration” stipulates that Hong Kong, as a Special Administrative Region of the Communist China, has an independent democratic system that was developed over a century and a half of British colonial rule.

However, since 2019, the CCP has accelerated its suppression of Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms and institutions, installed pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong, and passed the “National Security Law” imposed by the CCP, which criminalizes so-called terrorism, secession, and subversion of the state with the maximum penalty up to life imprisonment.

According to a report released by the Congressional Research Service in March, more than 10,000 people were arrested during protesting against the National Security Law, of which more than 2,300 were charged with crimes under the law and 200 were convicted.