China’s First HK Arrests under New Dictator Laws

So. It's happened. Finally. The One-State-Two-Systems is finally gone.

The Chinese Communist Party, despite months of international protest and opprobrium, put the last nail in the coffin for Hong Kong Democracy. On the first day the new laws went into effect (today) the first arrests have been made.

If China was worried that anyone was watching we'll never know. Sadly Sky News, buried in their Coronavirus hysteria failed to notice as I'm writing this. Thumbs-up to The Guardian, The Telegraph and BBC News for being awake and reporting this on their respective web sites.

So now what? Boris said that he would allow eligible Hong Kongers an extended visa and a “fast track” to citizenship. I think he should go further. Given China;'s aggressive attitude, not only to Hong Kong but pretty much all their neighbours (bar North Korea), the United Kingdom should announce that it offers immediate and full citizenship to all 3 million Hong Kong residents who were born before 1997. Families would be included because citizenship includes kids.

I can see how this may be scary to some people who object to immigration in general, but think about it. We are in the middle of an economic crisis. We need industrious people to come to the UK and build new businesses, create jobs and revitalise our ailing economy. The people of Hong Kong have ever shown themselves to be exactly that, and the competition for them will be fierce, especially from Canada and Australia who will not be shy to offer some great opportunities.

The US should implement their threats to remove Hong Kong from the special trade deals that they currently benefit from and we should, as a group, stop our reliance on China for all our cheap imports. This will put China straight back to 1980, and internal demand will crash creating a real problem from Chairman Xi. Their access to international currency will collapse as well as their ability to spend unlimited amounts on their military.

Sure, it will create some problems for us too, but we have an opportunity to rebuild our economies as we wish. It will take 10-20 years to implement, but our strategy should be clear. If China continues to harvest organs from their political dissidents, carries out mass exterminations of Uyghurs, and refuses to allow basic human rights, then we shouldn't trade with them.

Yes. They are a big part of world trade, but we created this monster, and we can (hopefully) break it if we wish to. It comes at a cost, of course, but just imagine the cost if we let them reach unlimited control over the world as they have in Africa or in Pakistan. There have already been signs that European countries such as Italy who benefits from Chinese largesse can no longer criticise it. The UK and the US have also been threatened with “countermeasures“.

So, like the erstwhile citizens of Hong Kong, do we choose freedom or meekly let the CCP get away with murder?

There are things worth fighting for and I believe this is one of them.

EDIT: 1 July @ 16:00 BST:

Since I wrote this, the UK has made a citizenship offer to the 3m Hong Kong residents who where already UK citizens in 1997. We should have never given the people of HK away in the first place, but Boris has stayed true to his word. Britain is open for business. Excellent news!