The Chinese Communist Party launched a scathing attack on Friday against U.S. and British government efforts to hold Beijing accountable for its repression in Hong Kong.
The pressure is justified in light of China’s passage this week of its so-called “Patriots Law.” That law strips Hong Kong of the democratic character that China, under its treaty obligations via the signing of the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration, had promised to respect until at least 2047. What China is doing in Hong Kong is thus both a legal and moral travesty, deserving of outrage and diplomatic response.
Unsurprisingly, Xi Jinping’s regime disagrees.
Hence, Friday’s Global Times editorial. A mouthpiece for foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi, who will meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Alaska next week, the Global Times admonished Blinken’s “crazy” rhetoric and “evil conspiracy.” America’s “political impudence has gone beyond our imagination,” the newspaper screeched.
This North Korean-style hyperbole aside, considering that the Chinese Communist Party’s capacity for imagination extends only so far as its interest in subjugating human lives, this retort is not terribly noteworthy. What is noteworthy, however, is how China defends its conduct in Hong Kong. Western critiques of China’s policy are irrelevant, the editorial argues, because “Belarus, on behalf of 70 countries, voiced support for China’s stances on affairs related to Hong Kong at a meeting during the 46th session of the Human Rights Council recently. That truly represents the international community’s voice.”
That’s a laugh-out-loud gem.
When you’re banking on Europe’s last dictatorship as your bastion for human rights credibility, you’re not on terribly strong ground. Dictator Alexander Lukashenko stole the presidential election last August and has brutally cracked down against innocent citizens since then. Belarus’s human rights credibility thus extends only so far as its ability to share tactics for repression. Indeed, in that sense, Belarus and China are actually perfect human rights partners — just not in the way that the Global Times presents.
But what of the other 69 countries that associated themselves with the U.N. statement?
Like Belarus, these are mainly a collection of African nations that rely heavily on China for economic investment (and for depleted fishing stocks) and Islamic nations such as Pakistan that don’t care much for their fellow Muslims. I don’t say that lightly, but Pakistan’s endorsement of China’s genocide against the Uyghur Muslim people of Xinjiang province is striking. Put simply, China’s human rights defenders are a collection of the bought and the desperate.
The Biden administration is on the right track. It should keep up the pressure.
