Were it not so sad, it would be funny.
Advancing its beneficent service of the people, the Chinese Communist Party has had the Hong Kong police force following the playbook once used by Nazi Gestapo secret police and the Soviet KGB.
In a Facebook post (because, why not?) on Thursday, Hong Kong police announced their new “National Security Service Reporting Hotline.” This line will allow people to make “non-emergency reports related to national security through WeChat, SMS, or dedicated emails on multiple platforms.” The post helpfully adds that “the police will not obtain your personal information through this hot thread. All collected information will not be disclosed to third parties and will be handled in strict accordance with the Personal Data (Privacy) Regulations.”
In other words, anonymously denounce your neighbors to the authorities for their social media activity. The post does not explain whether China’s Ministry of State Security intelligence service will “obtain your personal information” via the hotline. I would suggest to Hongkongers that, based on the MSS’s legal authorities and operational character, it will certainly use the line as a two-way intelligence collection tool.
After all, this hotline is not about supporting Hong Kong’s ability to protect the lives of its residents. It is instead designed to advance the Chinese Communist Party’s physical and psychological dominion over Hong Kong lives. The party elites don’t simply want Hongkongers to disclose the impure thoughts of their neighbors, they want neighbors to contemplate this hotline before they next open their mouths, or buy a newspaper, or vote in one of Hong Kong’s increasingly pointless elections. It’s textbook fear-mongering straight from the guide book of autocratic tyranny. Stalin would be proud.
We shouldn’t be surprised by China’s gall here. Something like this was always coming, and more will follow.
The Hong Kong national security law introduced earlier this year shreds China’s legal treaty commitments under the binding Sino-British declaration. That declaration requires Beijing to respect the democratic rule of law and Hong Kong’s independent judiciary until at least 2047. China, absurdly, claims that the law is necessary for counter-terrorism and counter-espionage purposes. Of course, the law was actually introduced to crush the very Hong Kong democracy that China is obliged to uphold. Xi knows that where Chinese citizens get a say over their futures, they say bye-bye to the communists, which makes Hong Kong a mortal threat to the glorious party’s continued credibility. And which is why, for example, Beijing has used the law to ban political candidates that oppose its do-whatever-god-prince-Xi-wants mantra.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment on whether the post is in breach of its publication rules.
