Photo/Illutration A Chinese product fair is held in Victoria Park in Hong Kong on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Three years have passed since China imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, stripping citizens in the former British colony of a wide variety of rights.

During the three years, the world has witnessed how a free society has been stifled by the law. The still ongoing steady erosion of human rights must not be relegated to oblivion.

Before the law, people in Hong Kong were engaged in all kinds of political activities that are a part of life in any democratic society, such as criticizing the government and demanding participation in politics.

Under the national security law, these actions could be labeled as crimes such as acts of “separatism” or “subversion.” Organizations controlled by the Chinese government join the investigations into such cases, undermining the independence of the judiciary.

It should not be forgotten that the security law represents the blatant breach of a promise Beijing made to the international community at the time of Hong Kong’s reversion to China in 1997. China pledged to allow Hong Kong to keep its basic systems unchanged and enjoy “a high degrees of autonomy” for 50 years.

During the three years, a total of more than 250 people have been arrested under the law for allegedly threatening national security. Many citizen groups have been forced to disband, while news media that dared to criticize the government, most notably the Apple Daily newspaper, were silenced.

Books of pro-democracy authors have been removed from the shelves of public libraries.

Public commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, which was an annual event to mourn the victims of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, has been banned. This year, in the park where the events were held with more than 100,000 citizens attending, a pro-China group held an exhibition of products.

The Hong Kong authority has announced plans to eliminate most of the directly elected seats on local district councils prior to their elections later this year. The number of directly elected seats in the municipal-level organization will be reduced to one-fifth of that for the previous elections, while the seats filled by government appointees will be increased.

Speaking about the measure, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the government “would not allow district councils to become a platform for advocating Hong Kong independence.” His remarks were maliciously intended to place a social stigma on citizens willing to support Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The Chinese government seems to be betting that relentlessly silencing pro-democracy voices will break the citizens’ will to realize democracy in Hong Kong.

The fear is that the situation in Hong Kong may only vindicate a warning from Nathan Law, a Hong Kong activist currently exiled in Britain.

In his book “Freedom: How we lose it and how we fight back,” Law says, “The aim (of an authoritarian regime) is not to oppress people, but for people to no longer be capable of recognizing their own oppression.”

The problem is not confined to Hong Kong. An exchange student from Hong Kong has been indicted over political messages she posted on social media from Japan.

The national security law has a provision stipulating that people can be punished over their activities outside its territory. Recently, a Japanese citizen who supported protests in Hong Kong was denied entry into the region.

There are legitimate concerns that Japanese nationals could also be targeted in the crackdown.

Hong Kong has historically served as a window connecting China with the outside world and the flow of people, goods and information that move through it have brought prosperity to both China and the rest of the world.

It should not be allowed to become an outlet to discharge the evils of authoritarianism into the world. Japan should keep protesting China’s suppression of human rights in Hong Kong without treating it as somebody else’s problem.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 29

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