 It's five o'clock, I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech Global Connection. We have Frank Cheng on the line from Hong Kong and we are so happy that he has joined us. Hi, Frank, welcome to Think Tech. Thank you, hi, Jay. Good to see you. Yeah, nice to see you and hear you too. So you're a columnist, you're one of those larger than life journalists, may I say, covering interesting, if not globally relevant stories and especially about China and Hong Kong. Yeah. And you've been with various publications. Who are you writing for now? Well, actually, I've been doing this now for several decades. I started writing a column in the Asian Master Journal in the 90s, 80s. And then I wrote a column in the Firehatch Economic Review. I wrote 100 Sub-China Morning Post. And now I write occasionally in the Sub-China Morning Post, not regularly. I still write a weekly column, but it appears in the English language edition of the Hong Kong Economic Journal, which is really a Chinese paper. Now, very often they run my column in English in the Chinese newspaper itself, which looks very odd. Well, it says something, doesn't it? I would like to offer it. You don't have to respond, but there's really nobody like Frank Ching in the world. You're really special. And you cover a beat that nobody covers in the same degree and with the same sophistication. So we're gonna talk about Hong Kong and China today. And since you're in Hong Kong, one of your recent columns you referred to it as in a state of end game. And I guess that means the new security law. Can you talk about that? Yeah, sure. The National Security Law was drafted by China, passed by the Chinese Parliament, not by the Hong Kong Legislative Council, and then sort of imposed on Hong Kong. It was promulgated in Hong Kong and came into law immediately before anyone in Hong Kong had a chance even to read it. It was a little weird because even the chief executive, Perry Lam, I think never had a chance to read the law before it became the law, very odd. And then it came into full effect on July 1st. Actually, it left the clock at night the night before. But then on July 1st, she had a press conference and CNN asked her, is it illegal for anyone to criticize the National Security Law? And she went on to, well, that's a matter of freedom of speech. So if you want to criticize it, you have the right to do that. Unless, of course, you're part of a plot or you have some other thing in mind, like overthrowing the Chinese government or overthrowing the Hong Kong government. So it's not clear to me to what extent it is legal to criticize the National Security Law because you know that Hong Kong was going to have an election in September next month. It's now been delayed for a year. But before the announcement of the delay, there were candidates who had declared themselves, put themselves forward. And those candidates had to be screened by the government's so-called returning officers. And Joshua Wong was not allowed to run because he had called this law a draconian law. Now, it seems to me that calling it a draconian law is just a description. Maybe it's a criticism of the law, but then criticizing one aspect of the law doesn't necessarily mean that you don't accept that it's a law, that it's legal, you have to abide by it. But because he said that, he wasn't allowed to run for the legislature. So it seems to me that I would like to get this clarified. If I write an article and call the law a draconian, am I committing an offense? It's really not very clear to me. Yeah, well, maybe you wouldn't be able to run for office, Frank. Well, that's a friend, I have no ambition to run for office in Hong Kong, but will the National Security Police come and take me away? Yeah, well, that's sort of really the question is, the First Amendment was strong and vital in Hong Kong until recently, even over the handover. And it would have been except for some of the moves that the PRC has made. And so now the question is, is there a First Amendment left or is everyone terrified? Not just Joshua Wan, but anybody who's heard the Jimmy Lye story, they would be afraid to make statements even if they're Hong Kong elsewhere, right? If they make a statement elsewhere that violates the National Security Law, then they're in violation of that. It's very scary. So the question is, what has happened to the First Amendment, to the freedom of the people in the First Amendment? Well, the National Security Law has extra territorial reach that is not confined to Hong Kong. If you do anything in Hawaii, for instance, you can commit an offense. And if they catch you in Hong Kong, you can be charged under the National Security Law. That is anyone of any nationality saying or doing anything anywhere in the world can be charged, can commit an offense against this Hong Kong law. Which is really very broad. I know of very few instances of this. And I think that it would be good if they could clarify this. You know that the Hong Kong police reportedly have issued a warrant for the arrest of, I think, six or seven people at this point. And one of them is an American citizen who lives in Washington, D.C. And he's lived there for the last 20, 25 years. And they accused him of colluding with foreign forces. Now, the foreign forces he's been colluding with is the U.S. government that has, he's been trying to persuade his own government to do something about Hong Kong. And this is now considered a crime in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong government. Well, I would be terrified. I mean, how are people reacting to the Jimmy Lye arrest? And what is likely to happen with him? Is he gonna be moved to the mainland for trial and punishment? What's gonna happen? We don't know what's gonna happen. This is what's so scary, because everything is sort of opaque. We don't know what course of action they'll take because they have choices. The mainland, under the law, the mainland can, if it chooses, have him sent to the mainland for investigation and trial. And if the mainland thinks it doesn't want to do that, then the mainland can allow the Hong Kong authorities to investigate and charge him. So, so far, as I understand it's only been done by the Hong Kong police, but the mainland can sap it at any time. Well, this is pretty scary for the ordinary person, you know, ordinary resident of Hong Kong. And I imagine a lot of those people who were out there with the umbrella movement and who protested the national security law in the first have probably backed off because they would be afraid of being arrested. Don't you think this has broken the back of the protest movement? I think it has, but of course, it's been assisted by COVID-19. There are no protests in the streets because nobody's gathering in the parks or the streets, holding rallies, demonstrations. And by law now, you cannot have more than two people gathered together. So, even when the restaurants are open, they're only allowed to see two people at any one table. Oh, no. So in that environment, you cannot really have a protest. And I think this is going to go on for quite a long time. Well, as time goes by, I think it will take root change the culture, don't you, in Hong Kong? Well, that vitality in Hong Kong will change. And it just won't be the same place anymore. Yes, and the arrest of Jebi Lai and the raid on the Apple Daily newspaper, going through journalists' files, this is definitely going to have a chilling effect on the media in Hong Kong. The police said that they had to look at what's there to know what to see. So, that their intention was not to disrupt the work of the reporters. But of course, that was the effect. And I think people are afraid of what to write. And certainly, what to write in the Apple Daily. I mean, the Apple Daily staff seems to be undeterred. The Apple Daily keeps publishing. And by the way, I don't know if you know this, but the day after the raid on the Apple Daily, the demand for the paper was so great. Normally, they have a print run of 70,000. The next day, people were standing in line to buy the paper and they had to print like five times that number of papers to satisfy demand. People were standing in line from two o'clock in the morning on, waiting for the paper to come out. That's a statement, isn't it? Yeah, and I think there was one way of showing their moral support for the paper. Sure. And another thing was that a lot of investors, people bought shares in the company, next media company, that the value of the company went up a thousand percent. Oh, that's wonderful. But now the government is investigating who these investors are. And see if there are any irregularities. So it can be very scary. Even what the rest can be investigated. Well, there was footage played on local TV about the police going into the paper and messing everything up, looking through files and just making a mess. And I said to myself, gee, these police, as in the street scenes, they're Hong Kong people. I don't understand why a Hong Kong person would take a job via policemen and be so mean to other Hong Kong people. Do you have an explanation for that? Well, they're the police. They, I guess from their standpoint, they're doing their job. Also, the police now have been given more powers. They've been given a lot more money in increased funding. And they have been given additional weapons that they didn't have. Now, a lot of countries are no longer selling weapons to Hong Kong, including the United States, the UK, and so forth. But they can get whatever weapons they want from the mainland. And they're being now trained by the mainland. They used to get training from the United States, the Hong Kong police. That has stopped. And they're being trained by the mainland. And that also is somewhat scary that the Hong Kong police are almost directly under the mainland's public security department. Go ahead. Yeah, and I think, well, 200 policemen went into the offices of Apple Daily, and they explained that massive presence by saying that they didn't want to disrupt the work for too long. So they sent in fewer people. It would have taken them a lot longer. So they sent in a lot of people, and it only took a few hours rather than the whole day. Oh my God. Actually, that sounds like something Trump would do, but that's my opinion of Trump. But let's talk about U.S. relations with China and how that has somehow been embedded in this whole process. And U.S. relations with Hong Kong, which courtesy a state department that is run only by one man. So, Queery, what is happening with U.S. relations with China and with Hong Kong, and what is the connection? Well, U.S. relations of China, as you know, have deteriorated to, I think, worse than it's ever been. So it's certainly worse than any time since the Korean War in the 1950s. And this is in all aspects. It started off as a trade war, then it was a media war, and then diplomatic war, the closing down of consulates in both countries. Then there's now a propaganda war, ideological war, the U.S. trying to turn people against the Communist Party in China. And the U.S. is also trying to put pressure on Hong Kong, on China in terms of Hong Kong. And there, I think the U.S. wants to not hurt people in Hong Kong as much. But I don't think, I don't think you can help, not, you can help hurting the people in Hong Kong. They're gonna be hurt, you know. If you say that Hong Kong will no longer enjoy special treatment in terms of trade. The U.S. recently said Hong Kong exports to the U.S. can no longer say made in Hong Kong. They've got to say made in China. You cannot differentiate between a product made in Hong Kong and made in China. And Hong Kong pointed out that it was a, it's a separate member of the World Trade Organization. In fact, of course, Hong Kong was in the WTO before China joined. So what, why is the U.S. making one member of the WTO say that it's products are manufactured in another member of the WTO? It doesn't sound like U.S. policy toward Hong Kong has been coaching. I mean, what, if it was coaching, what would it look like? Well, you know, I think that the U.S., the U.S. cannot really separate policy towards Hong Kong policy towards China. Because the most powerful weapon in the hands of the U.S. is the U.S. dollar. Now, Hong Kong, the Hong Kong currency is linked to the U.S. currency, right? And the Hong Kong dollars, well, one U.S. dollar roughly 7.8 Hong Kong dollars. And if the U.S. dollar, if the U.S. denies Hong Kong access to the U.S. dollar, it would be able to disrupt Hong Kong and also disrupt China because China uses Hong Kong as a way of getting foreign currency in a way. It's not that reliant on Hong Kong anymore. It used to be almost entirely reliant on Hong Kong. But if the U.S. would deny China access to the U.S. dollar, that would really be a huge challenge to China. But it would be a huge challenge to the United States. People keep saying the U.S. would be more badly hurt than China if it were to do something like that. And it's true, the U.S. and Chinese economies are very much interwoven. And you cannot say, I'll punish you, but it won't affect me. It will affect the U.S. whatever the U.S. really tries to hurt China. So do you think that the new security law, the national security law, is a function of Xi Jinping's efforts to improve his control of mainland China and part of a political effort to become more powerful, to grandize his power, protect his power on the mainland, to show the world that he can control Hong Kong? Some people have offered that as a possible connection. What do you think about it? Well, I think that there is some aspect of that, but primarily it is to gain control over Hong Kong. You know, Hong Kong last year, the second half of the year was really out of control. And the protesters were attacking Chinese government institutions, throwing the Chinese flag in the harbor and burning the Chinese flag doing all kinds of things. And Xi Jinping could not allow this to go on. At the same time, it was having some influence within the mainland. Some slogans used in Hong Kong were also being used on the mainland by small groups of people. But still you could see that there was some seepage into the mainland of this malignant Hong Kong influence. So I think Xi Jinping wanted to stop that and he also wanted to put Hong Kong under control. I would say putting Hong Kong under control would also increase his control in the mainland. Does this ultimately play out in connection with China's relationship with Taiwan? I know it's not the same, but I wonder if it bespeaks of a plan to expand whatever happens in Hong Kong somehow into Taiwan. Yeah, I think the destiny of Hong Kong and Taiwan are linked. And you know that a lot of Hong Kong people are now moving to Taiwan. I think in the last years, several thousand people moved to Taiwan, three or four thousand people. And in Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, the president, has rejected the idea of One Country, Two Systems, which is the formula that China uses for Hong Kong. And Xi has said that just look at Hong Kong today. If we accept One Country, Two Systems, this is what Taiwan will be like tomorrow. So, I'm not sure what I would say. Hong Kong today, Hong Kong wants to be like Taiwan. So what Taiwan is like today, Hong Kong would like to be like that tomorrow. So there is a lot of leakage and comparisons. You spoke about people leaving Hong Kong for Taiwan. What about the 300,000 visas that have been promised by the UK? Are people taking advantage of that or are they moving to the UK? That's almost three million, actually. Oh, my goodness. 2.9 million. It's a very large percentage of the Hong Kong population. They're not going to get visas directly. These are people who already have or are eligible for the British National Overseas Passport. That is people who were born in British Hong Kong before July 1st, 1997. They are eligible for this passport. But the passport itself right now just allows you to go to the UK for a year. And then you have to leave. But what is being proposed now by the government, and I think it's going to come into effect in January, is that people who have this special British passport can go to the UK and work there and be granted like work visas for five years. So after they've lived and worked in the UK for five years, then they can apply for citizenship and they'll take another year. So basically, you have to spend at least six years in the UK and then you get UK citizenship. But they're not going to hand you a visa where you can live in the UK immediately. Well, how does that break down? I mean, who can take advantage of that? Is that the, what side of the divide is that those the wealthy people, the not so wealthy people who can do it? It goes by birth when you were born. Because if you were born before July 1st, 1997, born in Hong Kong, then you are eligible for the status of British national overseas. If you're born after that, you are not eligible. However... It sounds pretty attractive, Frank. And I would imagine a lot of people would take advantage of it. And I imagine a lot of people, the people who do take advantage of it will be a great loss to the workforce. So they, what do you want to call it? The thought leaders in Hong Kong. And that goes to my next question. It's what is the end game? How is this going to wind up? It doesn't sound like a good time. No, no, but I think it's good that there is this possibility for a lot of people in Hong Kong to move to the UK if they want to. But then they have to be financially able to afford such a move. And of course, jobs in the UK are not easy to come by these days. You have to go to the UK and get a job and support yourself for five years. That is not easy. So I think that nowhere near 5 million or even 10% of 5 million will actually go to the, 3 million will actually go to the UK. But from the pro Hong Kong government standpoint, this is good and that the people who leave tend to be the ones who are against the government, critical of the government. So you have fewer people who vote against the government who will take part in protest, demonstrate and so forth. And in the meantime, there's this constant stream of mainlanders coming in to settle down in Hong Kong. You know, since 1997, there have been over a million mainlanders who have come in and the population now seven and a half billion, more than a million of that, mainlanders who have come to Hong Kong to live. So this proportion will constantly change. And increasingly, the Hong Kong population consists of mainlanders who have come to Hong Kong to settle. And the original Hong Kong people will be moving on to the UK, Canada, Australia, the US. It's a displacement somehow, a complete shift. You know, one of the things that I've always understood was that Hong Kong was a portal to mainland China for capital, for business deals. And the capital would come from all over the world, it would go through Hong Kong. There was a community of finance people in Hong Kong banks and finance people who would place the capital into China. Then Shanghai got to be, you know, the PRC wanted Shanghai to also do that. And so a thing shifted. The question I have for you is in the end game, is that going to continue? Is there still going to be a capital portal through Hong Kong to the mainland? Yes, I think so. I mean, it's continued over the last 23 years. And Shanghai can never replace Hong Kong as an international financial center as long as the renminbi is not fully convertible. And right now it isn't. So they've been talking about actually 10 years ago, in 2010, they said in 10 years, Shanghai will be an international financial center. Well, this is the 10th year, and it hasn't happened yet. And unless they are going to take a really bold move and allow the renminbi to be fully convertible, this is not going to happen. And I don't see this happening in the near future. So I think that they are going to be relying on Hong Kong to continue to be a channel for foreign currency. And it's in China's interest to have the banks and the bankers stay and continue to do business in Hong Kong. And my understanding is that the PRC has incentivized them in some way, given them benefits, so not to oppose the new security law and other PRC moves into Hong Kong. Am I right about that? Well, I think that the PRC has been putting pressure on banks to support the national security law. So even before the law came out, the HSBC came out and supported the law. Senate Childhood Bank came out and supported the law before they saw it because of Chinese pressure. But it's, we support the national security law. It tells you a lot, doesn't it? So I think that China wants everybody to think that the impact of law will only be on, well, a small number of political activists and without a factor. So they want to reassure business people that everything is well. However, the AMCHA, American Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey among its members in Hong Kong and up to 40% are thinking about whether they should stay in Hong Kong or not. So I think that unless China can really reassure people that the impact is going to be very limited, you will see over time an accident of international business. Yeah, it sounds like that's what happened. I mean, my next area I wanted to ask you about was China's image, the PRC's image in the world. I mean, they have a significant image problem with the Uyghurs and Xinjiang. They have obviously a significant problem in Hong Kong in the South China Sea. They've been mean. They've been mean and unnecessarily aggressive. At the same time though, they've mounted campaign to get more influential in the United Nations. And so you can see that they're really careful about trying to protect their image and making sure the world doesn't think they're too mean. I wonder how that's going and whether it's working and whether you think rather the PRC can actually protect itself from a bad image. Well, you know, like the Hong Kong issue was discussed in the UN Human Rights Council. And the UK had a statement that was supported by maybe 16, 17 countries. And then Cuba had a pro-China statement that was supported by initially by 50 some countries and ultimately by 70 countries. So China is saying it has the support of most countries in the world. And then what's interesting is that this Cuban statement was not published by anyone except the Chinese mission at the United Nations. That is, people were looking for the statement among all these 50 countries that supported it. None of them had published a statement anywhere. And then even the Cubans did not have the statement published in their foreign ministry website. So, and then they pointed out that these 50 some countries together account for less than 4% of the world's GDP. So they're trying to discount this. However, another part of view is that all these Western countries added up together, they only account for like 12, 15% of the world's population. Whereas 80 some percent of the world's population live in countries that support China. That is the developing countries. In the UN, I think China can always get a majority on its side in the General Assembly. No question that the US cannot compete against China in the United Nations. Yeah, well, that's the US that didn't even trying these days is making all the wrong moves. And my last question to you because we're almost out of time, Frank, is, you know, so there's a fair chance nobody making any big bets on it, but there's a fair chance that Joe Biden will win the presidency in November, assuming we can get by all these process, you know, issues around the post office and so forth. And I wonder, you know, what he should do. It's not easy to repair the damage to our relationship with China. And I say repair. I mean, it's not only get friendly, but also, you know, have a certain amount of influence and persuasive control on what they do with human rights and so forth. And for that matter, what they're doing in Hong Kong. And I wonder what Joe Biden could do being well advised in order to make that relationship better than it is now. Well, I think the main thing is that with Trump, he's unpredictable. You never know what he's gonna do next. And I think that China for a long time wanted Trump to win a second term. You know that John Bolton in his book disclosed that Trump had actually asked Beijing for support for his reelection and said that he needed the farm vote in the U.S. And if the U.S. were to buy more agricultural products, it would really help him. And China promised to buy $200 billion from the U.S. this year and next year. But I think at this point, China thinks that it's better to have somebody that they can predict what the person is gonna do rather than a guy like Trump who blows hot and cold all the time and never know what it's gonna do next. So I don't think that Trump at this point has China's support to get a second term. Now, if Biden comes in, the whole atmosphere in the United States has changed. I think it's a bipartisan thing that the mood towards China has shifted and there is a general sense of suspicion and I would say hostility towards China. But with Biden, I think that things will return to a state of greater normality in that you will have officials appointed. Now, when Trump came in, a lot of positions were less vacant, no appointments. I think Biden will appoint qualified people. They will not undergo equal screening and they will do what is expected of them in that position and not have to show loyalty to Joe Biden in order to do the job. So I think that the diplomacy of China will return to a more normal track. Although it would not, I don't think it'll be a warm relationship. It will be a more normal relationship which is the way it should be. I'm with you, Frank. Thank you so much. Frank Cheng, a reporter, journalist, columnist, power excellence reporting on Hong Kong and China for many years. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Jay. My pleasure to be here. Aloha.