China is pushing legislation that would “legalize kidnappings” of Americans in Hong Kong, a prominent pro-democracy activist warned Congress on Wednesday.
Debate over the bill sparked a brawl in the Hong Kong legislature last weekend, with one reformist politician wheeled away by paramedics. The amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance would allow Hong Kong to extradite individuals accused of crimes in China. That would be a historic expansion of Beijing’s power in Hong Kong, which has been a self-governing region since 1997, when the United Kingdom relinquished sovereignty over the former colony.
“The moment it is passed, there will be danger to everybody … including the 85,000 American residents working or living in Hong Kong,” Martin Lee, a former lawmaker and the founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
“All that will be necessary to have anybody extradited back to mainland China is for the government to ask somebody to make an affidavit to say that you or this person has committed a criminal offense in China some many years ago, and the court cannot protect anybody,” said Lee, known as Hong Kong’s “Father of Democracy.”
Hong Kong — along with democratic nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom — doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Beijing, as the Communist regime doesn’t have a fair and independent judiciary. An extradition procedure that can be triggered simply by a sworn affidavit produced by Chinese authorities would be “an extradition law that will legalize kidnappings and threaten to destroy Hong Kong’s free society,” Lee said.
”’Legalize kidnapping,’ that should be something that should concern everyone,” Florida senator Marco Rubio, Republican cochairman of the commission, said at the hearing. “It is one of the reasons why I’ll be reintroducing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which updates our Hong Kong policy and establishes punitive measures against government officials responsible for suppressing fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.”
“It is in everyone’s interest that Hong Kong remain a free and prosperous bridge between China and the West,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., added. “The city’s unique vitality and prosperity are rooted in its guaranteed freedoms and the rule of law. But if Hong Kong is to become just another mainland Chinese city, we will have to reassess whether Hong Kong warrants special status under U.S. law.”
Those testifying at the hearing said Chinese President Xi Jinping, already keen to exert more control over the region, could use the extradition procedure as a tool to target not only human rights activists but major American corporations regarded as key players in the burgeoning geopolitical competition between the United States and China.
“Just imagine if senior executives of, say, Google were to be extradited back to China, then they would be subjected to a lot of pressure to disclose trade secrets,” Lee predicted.
Media companies are also at risk, another pro-democracy activist told lawmakers. “If you write something in Hong Kong or America, and then you come to Hong Kong, and they charge you with aiding and abetting, they can extradite you back to China,” said Lee Cheuk-yan, also a former legislator.
That risk applies even to major U.S. outlets such as CBS, which recently removed a song from the show “The Good Fight” that knocked China’s authoritarian regime. “CBS claimed that it feared for the welfare of its journalists in Beijing if a critical cartoon was broadcast on an entertainment show broadcast in the United States,” Rubio told the panel.
“CBS’s concern about their journalists is a very genuine problem,” Lee Cheuk-yan responded. “They have to be more concerned not just about journalists inside China but also about their editor in Hong Kong or anyone that [is] working for CBS or any other media outlet in Hong Kong.”
The activists stressed the need for big corporations to oppose the legislation, given the traditional overlap between pro-business and pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong. They have had some success already. The risk of unjust prosecutions “will reduce the appeal of Hong Kong to international companies,” the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong warned. “Hong Kong’s international reputation for the rule of law is its priceless treasure.”
Martin Lee said the business community is “waking up” to the threat, albeit slowly.
“They’d rather that we fight the fight for them. They don’t want to stick their necks out, they don’t want to offend China,” he said. “It is really in their interest, too, that human rights are preserved for everybody.”
