The world must not let Hong Kong fall, for its own sake
Today the puppet Chinese Communist national parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a national “security law” for Hong Kong. This move will change the territory’s mini-constitution, or Basic Law, adding a national security law that will override them. This in effect means that the autonomy and freedom that Hong Kong and its people have enjoyed has will be destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party. The law would ban acts and activities in connection to secession, subversion, and terrorism, as well as activities related to foreign interference. Moreover, Beijing’s security agencies would be allowed to set up operations in Hong Kong. However it will be the CCP, not the Hong Kong legislature, which will decide what exactly the definition of “secession, subversion, and terrorism” actually means. In reality this will likely include dissidents, the pro democracy movement, free speech campaigners and protests against Beijing and its policies. In short this is the end of Hong Kong as a free and autonomous city state.
This is already happening in practice as people who protested in Hong Kong against this law were arrested by the police. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested in the last several days alone. China would argue that this is a local issue which does not involve the world, however, that's a lie. The autonomy and freedom that the people of Hong Kong enjoy is a result of UN international backed treaties which China signed on 1997, and promised to respect and adhere to, when the UK handed Hong Kong, its former colony, back to China. The failure of China to respect and adhere to this international agreements must provoke a harsh international reaction that will force China to rescind and walk back its planned destruction of Hong Kong's autonomy, civil liberties and rule of law. If that does not happen this will be seen in China as a “green light” for Xi Jinping and his regime, and that they can get away with ignoring and breaking international agreements and treaties when it suits them.
Most people in the world don't really understand what kind of regime leads China today. The Chinese Communist Party is responsible for murdering at least 50 million of its own citizens (some estimates put the number much higher) and the imposition of a totalitarian Orwellian rule over one fifth of the world's current population while imprisoning millions of people in concentration camps simply because of their ethnicity and religion. If the world fails to check China on its planned destruction of Hong Kong's autonomy, this will also embolden China to continue its other imperialistic projects. Projects such as the militarization and the occupation of the entire South China sea (where one third of all global maritime shipping and trade passes through), and the subsequent “unification” of Taiwan with mainland China, by military force if necessary, which could trigger a regional war and possibly a world war. In China's eyes, if the world didn't try to help Hong Kong, why would they help Taiwan?
The possible future ramification of allowing China to destroy Hong Kong are just too great for the world to ignore. This is watershed moment in world history, failure to recognize this and act on it will spell a dark future not just for Hong Kong, but to the whole world.
