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Showing posts with label NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS. Show all posts

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Deleted memories and masked conversations by the West and Hong Kongers

Hong Kongers and the West have forgotten that Hong Kong was a forced ‘concession’ territory from China at gunpoint. The colonial history books that Hong Kongers want to preserve portray China as corrupt, evil and oppressive, as if Britain occupied Hong Kong for democratic purposes.

  https://youtu.be/WIcP7pNtmmA

What you should know about China's new national security law for Hong Kong


https://youtu.be/_kVfsXQM01k

https://youtu.be/mrqOHpP5524

Has Democracy ever existed in HK under British colonial rule?英国学者:回归前的香港有民主吗?Martin Jacques

https://youtu.be/L7BEGpfuVi8


STATUES represent memories of the past, both glory and shame. With Bristol taking down the statue of slave trader, later philanthropist Edward Colston (1636-1721), US protestors have started taking down statues of Civil War or slave-tainted personalities. Law and order President Trump want to protect statues against desecration.

Who is right?

History contains more icons of past glories and few memories of bad losses. One of the worst defeats in British military history is remembered in the comic phrase “up the Khyber Pass” when in 1842 British forces retreated out of Afghanistan and lost 16,000 troops and civilians, with only one survivor. Up the Khyber Pass means today an expletive project without an exit strategy, blunders both the Russians and Americans repeated in Afghanistan.

The prestigious magazine Foreign Affairs devoted a whole issue in January/february 2018 on how countries have grappled with their past brutality. Museums and public education help explain why these events occur and how we should deal with them as a community. Remembering is painful, discussion is difficult and blaming deepens the divide.

All individuals, families and nations have blunders, tragedies and scandals that they prefer to forget. They deal with these in their own way.

Some forget, others hide their shame, a few atone for their past crimes by engaging in philanthropy or doing good deeds, and smart ones hire PR firms to make them look good. But memories and instant history that we watch unfold today are over-whelming. Today’s eight billion smartphone/cameras record all events real-time.

Reducing complex events and trends as tweets and soundbites paint the world as false binaries of black and white, good versus evil. Instead of finding solutions to the mess we are in, quasi-religious emotion over-rides rational process. So we delete or cancel what we do not like or blame them on someone else. Such emotion is understandable at a time of pandemic, shock and trauma. New York Times columnist David Brooks identified what America is going through as five epic crises all at once - bungling the pandemic; dealing with racism; political polarisation; quasi-religious struggle; and economic depression. From this side of the Pacific, it looks more like America going through her own “cultural revolution” – a rite of passage for every community in times of profound change.

Since July 1997, Hong Kong is still going through her painful cultural revolution.

Under the One Country Two Systems philosophy, no colonial statues or street names were changed. But Hong Kongers and the West have forgotten that Hong Kong was a forced “concession” territory from China at gunpoint.

The colonial history books that Hong Kongers want to preserve portray China as corrupt, evil and oppressive, as if Britain occupied Hong Kong for democratic purposes. Today, Britain is haunted also by her slavery history, just as Australian aborigines, New Zealand Maoris and Canadian native Americans bear the brunt of post-colonial injustices, with serious social problems that the elites have ignored for years.

How can Americans condemn others’ human right abuses, when America has the highest number of people in jail, of which the majority are African Americans and Hispanics? None of us are so clean of sins that we can morally judge others.

In other words, if your memory of what happened is very different from my memory, how can we communicate with each? And if I delete what you consider an important statue that represents to you very important values and meaning, who judges who is right?

Behind this deep social divide is the debate over the use of face masks. Throughout East Asia, there are few cultural taboos against wearing masks when the pandemic started.

Indeed, East Asians avoided much of the pandemic spread because most people instinctively wore masks because they understood the dual benefits of protecting self and others.

In the US, however, there is aversion to wearing masks, beginning with US President Trump as if it is a challenge to individual ego and right against any state interference in individual freedom.

The pandemic and the economic lockdown have put this conflict between individual “good” or right that leads to public harm. Individual freedoms or rights are not absolute at the expense of others.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof says in “Refusing to Wear a Mask is like Driving Drunk”: it is “reckless, selfish behaviour that imperils the economy and can kill or endanger innocent people.”

You get double whammy of hurting the economy and lives at the same time.

In “Covid-19 and the End of Individualism”, Cambridge economist Diane Coyle reminded us that humans are social beings whose every decision affects other people.

To monitor and evaluate this interactive and interdependent risk requires the state to monitor where the communal risks lie, using tools such as contact tracing apps.

But these apps can also be used for commercial or national security purposes.

The real problem is that the public good versus individual privacy and rights issue is extremely controversial with few good answers. Increasingly, we become aware that an individual or virus can take down an entire economy, supply chain or defense system. The marginal costs of such a viral attack is very small compared to the ensuing disaster. This pandemic alone cost US$10 trillion this year and perhaps US$30 trillion to 2023. Deleted memories that interrupt our social discussion on how to cope with the post-covid world is far more complex than we could have imagined. What civilisational model fits an individual and the communal good in this age of climate change, social inequality, disruptive technology and intense geopolitical rivalry?

This civilisational conversation is only just beginning. Every family, community and nation engage in their internal conversation in different ways, because all have painful memories to resolve. Some do it through mega-phones, shouting slogans at each other, others do it quietly below the radar screen.

Our conversations with our loved ones, parents, spouses, partners, friends, are often conducted through silences rather than outright open quarrels.

But if we are to remain a family, community or nation, that conversation must be conducted, however painful and difficult.

We must find the common threads that bind us, or else they will break us.

Andrew Shengby Andrew Sheng


Views expressed here are solely that of the writer’s writer’s.

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Saturday, May 30, 2020

HK security laws legislation ‘justified’

 EVERY NATION ON EARTH, UNLESS A FAILED STATE HAS LAWS PTOTECTING NATIONAL SECURITY


https://youtu.be/fHRs8X2spIY

https://youtu.be/UBqL1V4Fa6g

https://youtu.be/3nemAeeaef4

https://youtu.be/nhRoRuPyeDw

Editor’s note: The following is the full content of the retired judge’s open letter expressing his views on the proposed national security legislation for Hong Kong.IN Hong Kong there is a set of laws, inherited from the colonial government, dealing in a haphazard way with some of the complex issues involving national security. These can be found in Part I of the Crimes Ordinance, the Societies Ordinance and the Official Secrets Ordinance.

No one pretends that these laws are anywhere near adequate to deal with the complicated matters of today. This problem was recognised by the drafters of the Basic Law: Hence Article 23. This required the Hong Kong SAR government, upon being established on July 1, 1997, to enact laws to prohibit treason, secession, sedition, subversion, prohibition of foreign entities forming political alliances with entities in Hong Kong.

An attempt was made by the colonial government, shortly before the handover, to ease the task of the future SAR government by upgrading the national security laws. This failed to win support in the Legislative Council.

The matter was revived in 2002 when, in September of that year, the government issued a consultation document on proposals to implement Article 23. It made a strong case for implementation. At paragraph 1.4 it said

“All countries round the world have express provisions on their statute books to prevent and punish crimes which endanger the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the state. Therefore, while nationals of a state enjoy the privilege of protection provided by it on the one hand, the individual citizens have a reciprocal obligation to protect the state by not committing criminal acts which threaten the existence of the state, and to support legislation which prohibits such acts on the other hand.”

The proposals took into account the whole range of constitutional guarantees of personal freedoms: speech, expression, the press; and freedom from arbitrary arrest, invasion of the home, etc;
As regards the crime of treason, the then-solicitor-general explained:

“The proposed new offence of treason will be narrower than the existing offence. It will therefore impose no new restrictions on freedom of speech. The only situation in which words could amount to treason under the proposals would be when the words instigate a foreigner to invade the PRC or assist a public enemy at war with the PRC. For example, if the PRC is at war with a foreign country and a Hong Kong resident broadcasts propaganda for the enemy.

What should have happened following the publication of the consultation paper was mature debate within the community, for the consultation document was not something that could have been absorbed fully at one glance. Regrettably, leaders in the community who claimed to represent the people adopted an ideological stance, claiming the proposal as an attack on Hong Kong’s autonomy. This was taken up by some of the popular newspapers. The thinking people in the community were given no space for mature reflection. A mass protest rally was organised. Young and old took to the streets. The result was that the National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill, introduced in LegCo in February 2003, was withdrawn, leaving the ramshackle colonial laws as defence against attacks on national security.

As things stood globally at that time, the world was in relative peace. The Iraq invasion had not yet taken place. The constitutional need in Hong Kong to implement Article 23 was held in abeyance, through two successive changes in the post of chief executive.

The world scene has since totally changed. The tension between nations has vastly increased, with the threat of trade war, cyber war possibly escalating into open conflict. The clash of navies in the South China Sea is regarded as a real possibility.

In these circumstances the need to upgrade and improve upon national security laws seems a matter of common sense.

And herein lies the crux of the problem facing Hong Kong today, which has attracted, once again, worldwide attention. And, as usual, the media has immediately danced to the tune of sound bytes, not having the time to study the issues in depth: answering to the exigencies of the daily-news cycle. Who, reporting on the issues of today, has read the government’s consultation document of September 2002?

The truth is this. Since October last year, the Hong Kong legislature has been dysfunctional. Except for matters of finance, it has ceased to operate as a legislature. An incident in the LegCo chamber on May 18 says it all: councillors brawling like children in a playground, a photo flashed worldwide showing a member screaming and kicking being forcibly removed from the council chamber. Have those reporting on the incident reflected on its deeper significance, beyond a shameful episode in a troubled land?

What it means is this: No law can be passed in Hong Kong. In the meanwhile, internal security has worsened, with increasing evidence of terrorist activities aimed at bringing the Hong Kong police to its knees and overthrowing the government.

The anti-government movement seems well-funded and this raises the question as to the source of the funds. Since October last year a state of grave public danger has existed and been recognised as such by the government. A threat of this nature to Hong Kong – a region of China – clearly constitutes a national security threat.

As Tung Chee-hwa, former chief executive, said on May 25: As Hong Kong had failed to enact its own security legislation for over 20 years, it has become an easy target for hostile foreign opportunists to disrupt public order, using Hong Kong in effect as a proxy for a wider power conflict.

What then should a national government do, seeing that the regional government has, in effect, become powerless?

The answer is the proposal before the National Peoples’ Congress: to enact by promulgation laws for the protection of Hong Kong and of the nation.

The draft decision emphasises the cardinal policies that lie behind the proposal: “one country, two systems”; Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong; and high degree of autonomy for the special administrative region.

When passed, the laws will be enforced by the Hong Kong courts exercising jurisdiction under the common law system – a system based upon the presumption of innocence, and proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Allied with this are the rules which emphasise that prejudicial evidence not directly relevant to guilt must be excluded.

The explanatory document issued by the vice-chairman of the NPCSC contains a warning which the legal profession and the judiciary in Hong Kong should heed: “Efforts must be made at the state-level to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanism of the HKSAR”.

At the regional level – Hong Kong’s level – enforcement mechanism has, for all the world to see, also broken down. Unrest and street violence have been going on for nearly one year – dampened to an extent by the overriding crisis caused by Covid-19. Very serious crimes have been committed. The health crisis did not erupt until March this year. Before then the courts were capable of functioning normally. Yet only a handful of persons arrested had been convicted, and none for crimes like attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, arson, criminal damage to transport infrastructure.

Bully tactics have been deployed. Families of police officers threatened. Businesses deemed “pro-Beijing” vandalised. People have been cowed into silence. And when people see that lawyers as a whole seem sympathetic to the rioters they get confused. Wherein lies the true values of the Hong Kong community?The common law lies at the heart of the “one country, two systems” policy, and is the foundation for Hong Kong’s success as a global financial centre. There is no reason why such policy should not go beyond 2047 if it harmonises with the broader national interests.

Hence it is very much in the interests of young lawyers to truly support that policy, to work towards the success of that policy: They will be at the high noon of their professional lives in 2047. And the duty of the older lawyers, the leaders of their profession, is to cultivate a climate conducive to their juniors’ success. But is this what they are doing in fact?

Clearly radical changes at all levels are called for, no less than in the judiciary. The starting point is surely to internalise this key concept that Hong Kong is a mere region of China. A small dot on the map of China; 7.4 million people in a population of 1.4 billion. Nothing more. To make it more, greater, more influential in the world, it requires nurturing in an authentic way.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into aspects of reform necessary to “improve the legal system and enforcement mechanism of the HKSAR”, in the words of the vice-chairman of the NPCSC. But those words must surely sound as a wake-up call for the legal profession and the judiciary.

The author is a former Court of Final Appeal judge, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. — China Daily/ANNb

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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