Regina Ip spins a fantasy of a just government restoring order to Hong Kong.
« The West tends to glorify » pro-democracy protesters « as defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms, but they have done great harm to the city by going against its constitutional order and stirring up chaos and disaffection toward our motherland, » declares a New York Times op-ed published today. Penned by Regina Ip, a legislator and member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, the piece reads as a paean to law and order, arguing in favor of the brutal national security law China recently imposed on Hong Kong, which has long operated under the « one country, two systems » agreement. This arrangement had long guaranteed that Hongkongers have basic speech and due process protections. But in February 2019, those freedoms were threatened by a proposed extradition treaty (since withdrawn) that would have allowed Hongkongers accused of crimes to be extradited to mainland China and subjected to its unpredictable, capricious justice system. This set off months of protests and calls for Chief Executive Carrie Lam to step down, with millions turning out to fight for their freedom. Many were met with aggressive police tactics, including the deployment of munitions that left some protesters blind or injured. Then Beijing enacted a national security law on June 30. It vaguely targets « secession, subversion of state power, foreign interference and terrorism, » and it has been used to suppress speech; since it passed, many activists have fled the city. Which brings us to the Times piece. Ip argues: Hong Kongers who wanted the city promptly to return to peace thought the authorities’ handling of the situation, which dragged on for months and grew more and more violent, was incompetent.
