 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections, and we have with us Michael C. Davis. That's Michael Curtis Davis, if you didn't know. And we're going to talk about the 4th anniversary of the movement in Hong Kong. We've been following that with him for years, and now here we are. It's a 4th anniversary, not necessarily a happy time. There is a map of Hong Kong and will also show you a map of India. And the reason is that Michael has an enormous biography would take us the whole show to go through all of it. But one of the things he does, he teaches at Dindal Global University near New Delhi. He also was associated with the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He's written. Dozens of books and articles about Hong Kong and other international issues. And he's testified in front of various governmental organizations looking into human rights in in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the United States and elsewhere. Welcome to the show, Michael. Thank you. So, let's talk about what this 4th anniversary means. And one thing that caught my eye is that in the past, the Tiananmen Square celebration memorialization in Hong Kong had been going on every year. Because people, although you can't really have a memorialization of that in China, you know, you could in Hong Kong and it was celebrated in Hong Kong for years and years. But this year they turned it off. And it's just a sign of the times, isn't it? Yes. And I mean, that's exactly 4 years ago when they did that. They started denying at first they were using COVID in 2020 to disallow this memorial. And I've been to many of them over the years because I, as you know, I was a professor at the University of Hong Kong for many years. And in fact, almost all of them. I went to and it was very peaceful, no violence, no threat to anyone. Just memorializing drawing attention to issues, which was what people do in regard to human rights. And now it's not allowed. They couldn't use COVID this excuse this year. So they just, I think pretty much they've decimated that anybody who would protest because the organization that organized it is disbanded. And the leaders of that organization are in jail awaiting trial under the national security law. So, and there was no one else stepped up and asked to do it, although there apparently some people who showed up on their own in Victoria Park in Hong Kong and we're arrested. So that's kind of where Hong Kong's at today in your right to draw attention to because it's symbolic of what's happened to Hong Kong. Yeah, well, I mean, it's a sad story and you and I have been talking about it. Oh, gosh, didn't see umbrella, umbrella days, if you will. Yeah, 2014 15 in those days. Yeah, yeah, that was a good time to leave you left in what 2016 thereabouts. Yeah, I, well I left but I came back every year under the Hong Kong system, the retirement mentor retirement 60 so I left then, but I came back kept coming back until 2020. I could pull it off after the NSL was passed because I was in New York and could teach my classes remotely, but I haven't been back to Hong Kong since it's, it's, it's kind of precarious to go back there. You're speaking out on human rights issues that human rights involvement is not much welcomed today in Hong Kong but you, the kind of things that involve promoting human rights could be treated as violating the national security law and accuse you of collusion with foreign forces and all these sorts of things. Yeah, a couple of questions flow out of that. So you've been hither and yon and various forum aura and venues, what not talking about the human rights little rights in Hong Kong. What is your message on it because it's, you know, it's, it's not a happy story. I guess was predictable that the pijing ping and his friends would would terminate those rights and they are and have and what can you say about it except the fact that they've been terminated. No, I think there's a lot to say actually I got a new book coming out to sign the contract on, but so I say a lot about it. But it's, you know, one thing there's two levels of ways to look at it. One is that promoting human rights, that's what you do. You draw attention to it, you keep publicizing it. And you'd like to believe that you're on the right side of history and that eventually the concerns that you're raising will be addressed and the people that are violating human rights will be called out for it. But that's what human rights work is, you know, I teach my students that you have to speak up is mostly about publicizing. So publicizing that on its own is important and it's done in, in, in a way to highlight a kind of broader concern in the world today which we call a kind of illiberal term that hard line regimes like China are promoting a kind of illiberalism around the world. China does not like the Soviet Union that tried to promote some version of communism. The Chinese Chinese regime the Communist Party isn't very communist anymore. Rather, it tends to do trade and stuff with countries with poor human rights records and sort of educate them and encourage a kind of illiberal systems of government where there's the structures and some of the institutions that look like democracy. They all undermine in various ways. And so there's something to learn from Hong Kong beyond what we can do about Hong Kong to highlight that this is the sort of model that's being promoted. And what the consequence are Hong Kong went from one of the most vibrant outspoken societies in the world to silence. And so that's something to be mindful of it's something to warn governments when they get in bed with regimes that promote this version of government that this is what's happening. And it's a warning to the rest of us in the world even in democracies where populist leaders are promoting us the same kind of a liberalism that undermines the institutions that guard democracy. There's an article by Tom Friedman today's New York Times where he talks and talks about domestic issues and he talks about Trump, of course, but that's exactly what he says he says if you want to deal with an autocrat or would be autocrat, you've got to speak up, speak out. That's that's the only antidote for it and people don't do that enough. They are afraid. And it's very interesting article, and it's reminiscent of Ann Applebaum. You know, years ago, I think was in the Atlantic where she gave an analysis of what happened in Eastern Europe after World War Two, where the communists wanted to take over all these countries and people were afraid, so they never spoke up. And that's what you're doing speaking up and urging other people to speak up. You mentioned you had a book out or we're coming out with a book. It's not your first one on this. Can you talk about your array of books dealing with Hong Kong? Yeah, well, this what I the editors of the first book which they showed at the beginning of our show today that the cover of it because we'll show what protests look like. I'll ask me if I would now because this was published right after the National Security Law was asked and in there I go through the history of many things in Hong Kong but also highlight the threat posed by the National Security Law. And the editors then asked me to three years later to do an update where I look at whether these things actually happened. I'm sad to report in this book I report in some detail, just exactly how they do it. I mean if you're in favor of authoritarianism there's almost genius to what they're doing and how they manipulate all these institutions, because what they want to do is create the impression that they still are running one country in Hong Kong and open society there, the rule of law. And so they maintain the facade or sort of structures that we see in democracy and that's why I said a moment ago that this is an education for us all because a lot of the countries that China does business with where this kind of governance is encouraged have also the sort of architecture of democracy, pretence of democracy, courts, you know, judicial review and all these things that claims to the rule of law, but have degraded these institutions. The title of working title on this new book has been freedom undone. Of course some reference to Hong Kong and that as well, but it's how do you undo freedom. How do you undo an open society. And so this becomes a kind of textbook study of how that is done and what was done and what the consequence was done. So I think this is kind of what we're looking at. And this is where lessons are to be learned and the point you made a moment ago, people are afraid to speak up and they're rightly afraid to speak up when they face jail or worse in many societies That puts an obligation which we all take on board. When our country signed the international covenant civil and political rights, when our countries declare their support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we take on board an obligation to speak up for people who cannot speak up for themselves. I find it very interesting that some of the things that China is doing, the PRC is doing in Hong Kong sound like they are liberal, but it's false. They have programs that sound like they're really interested in helping people and all that giving you know I mean I forget exactly what it was but there are programs and events that that sound like they're really helping people, but it's not true. Did you cover that? Do you know what I mean? Well this is how authoritarian regimes in effect have to behave, especially in this case where they're pretending to carry out this one country, two systems model. The basic law that was agreed to, it was agreed in a joint declaration which stipulated the content of this basic law. This basic law is hard to read it as promising anything other than an open liberal society with the rule of law because all the things that are instrumental to that are guaranteed in that. Now the National Security Law comes along in Article 4 says it's going to maintain those commitments but then it's going to protect national security. Who's the threat to national security? In China the biggest threat to national security is the Chinese people themselves in Hong Kong they presume that's the case as well. And so that's how it works and it's what we're seeing is they will pretend to do all these things that are still there because that's the basis for keeping Hong Kong, Hong Kong. I'm not making it China today I was interviewed by someone from the wire, just asking me whether Hong Kong is, you know, I called my book was making Hong Kong China how far have they gone on that road. And that's that's sort of the tension here, you know, in one country to systems it was often stated that China was one country and the Hong Kong people were two systems. But this is kind of the tension we're seeing. And unfortunately it's not just in Hong Kong because of the sort of global promotion of this kind of governance, where these kinds of leaders who think they know better than everyone else are promoting their version of governance and countries in that are democracies are having to stand up against that or not, you know, and that's sort of what's what's going on. Well, what she has done is a primer on how you, you know, advanced autocracy into a place that was not autocratic. And a lot of it is language it's rhetoric it's propaganda. It's lying to people. It's creating what what appears to be reasonable on the surface and before you know it. Jimmy lie and spirit it off to a prison. And so, you know what what you have is kind of a mind. It's having to do with your mind where you, you are told one thing but the reality is another thing and as you said a minute ago it's brilliant. And my question we talked about this before the show is, where does this brilliant come from. Is this Xi Jinping is it his brilliance is he really the one or is he surrounded with others that are the ones who come up with these programs. Well, I think when it comes down to Xi Jinping it's interesting with Father's Day on the horizon here there's a piece by one of my friends in the Washington Post talking about why Xi Jinping isn't more like his father, who was more of a kind of gone through being sent to the other side where Xi Jinping himself was as a child young man, and then eventually being rehabilitated as they say, during the Maoist era, and promoting more liberal ideas and free press and so on. Well it seems that she's lesson was that if you want to survive under communist regime, you have to be tougher than everyone else, not. You have to be more like Mao not like his dad so maybe the lesson he learned was to not be like his dad. And, and he, I think his idea is that that they believe for reasons are hard to explain that the Communist Party is essential to China that the country depends on it that without it there would be chaos, and that if you want to maintain the rule of the Communist Party, you have to block any kind of tendency towards liberalism and liberal liberalizing the system towards democracy. These ideas are the primary threat, and Hong Kong was, you know, Grand Central for these ideas. And so I think the idea became after the protest in 2019 that we have to shut this down. The Communist Party is threatened more than anything else by ideas that that is, they've issued documents on this back I think in 2013 document number nine, forbids even teaching constitutionalism separation of powers, Western notions of democracy, and she has woven that same idea block these things into his recent speeches and policy statements. And then he is a she or is he have a little cabal around him. I think it's mostly him. I think he's very much in charge of it. And he articulates a very broad notion of national security, such that under this version. There's a whole society version of national security anything everything involves national security. And so Hong Kong, the national security law isn't just arresting Jimmy lie, or the 47 politicians that had the audacity to have a primary election. But it's a red it's basically stopping these ideas on all fronts, intimidating the press to not promote these kinds of ideas. It's re educating the youth teaching national security all the way down to kindergarten level. And so over these years since the national security law was imposed on Hong Kong, it's reach has gone to all of society, and people ignore that at their peril. You know, we talked years ago. Maybe, you know, we were looking into the future at the time that what happened, what is happening, what has happened in Hong Kong. And so somehow advances that she's interest and willingness power to try to take over Taiwan. How, how is, how is that happening. Is that happening has what he has done in Hong Kong affected his ability to take over Taiwan. This is interesting question because one of the things about the one country to systems model that it was primarily designed for Taiwan to let Taiwan rejoin Beijing as part of the People's Republic, and yet have this high degree of autonomy in its own system, and so on. And then when people and then Hong Kong became a sort of execution of that, maybe as a model, see how well things are in Hong Kong, of course, people in Taiwan weren't having been impressed lately with how well things are going in Hong Kong. And so that means that this, the idea that Taiwan people would accept this kind of model is just not going to happen. And so then that means how do you get back Taiwan and Xi Jinping has a lot of political capital invested in that. This is where Ukraine comes in because Putin has sort of taken the bull by the horns and tried to do just that. And we see how well that's going. And of course she, while trying to pretend to be a peacemaker is very much behind Putin and supportive of Putin. So does that does the Ukraine situation and the Hong Kong situation signal anything to Xi Jinping, I guess if anything it signals Hong Kong may signal while we have to use force, and Ukraine may signal well maybe that won't work out so well. And so it kind of leaves it with a high level of uncertainty at the moment, whether that risk is approaching whether an attempt to do a Ukraine in Taiwan is on the horizon or not. And a lot of people are speculating about this. You talk, you talk about speaking, giving testimony, writing articles and books, speaking out on autocracy, speaking out on what happened, what is happening has happened in Hong Kong, but you're not only talking to Hong Kong because Hong Kong, actually in the reality of it can't do that much. It's already that the train is the train is on the track is, you know, it's not stopping, but really talking to other places. You're talking to other places that could be victimized by autocrats that want to invade or, you know, undermine their democracy. And I think that that becomes a global interest. When you talk about the loss of human rights and civil rights in Hong Kong, you're really sending a message everywhere and suggesting that people must speak out if they ought to prevent this from happening in their town. Right. Right. And to know what it looks like. What are the tools that are being used. So this new book I tried to weave some of that into it I don't want to take over the book but I do try to point out. That this is not just a Hong Kong problem. And I think a lot of the Hong Kong activists in exile now are very conscious of this that they they've been seen out working with Ukrainians. They've been seen interacting with people in Taiwan, interacting with Uyghurs, Tibetans. There's a I think now in the old days when Hong Kong was sort of hived off from the other or worse cases. There was some reluctance to engage these other groups because they didn't want to bring the, you know, the fury of Beijing down on their heads. But now that's sort of taken off the table that so in exile, a lot of them do work together. They go to various parts of Europe and elsewhere where they can go safely and they promote democracy. So the diaspora of Hong Kong, while Hong Kong has been silenced, these conditions have brought light to the exile community of Hong Kongers. Yeah, right. I suppose that's still happening. People are leaving Hong Kong go to Britain and elsewhere just get out of the way. Am I right? Yeah, they're doing that in large numbers. And not just that I mean business is leaving just today I read an interesting commentary on even the Hong Kong dollar peg is under some degree of threat, because if business community loses confidence in the system, then they start pulling their money out. And then you can degrade the Hong Kong dollar but because it's paying that means Hong Kong has to use US dollars to buy back Hong Kong dollars, and they've apparently over the past year used a lot. So there are sort of parameters if you will that tell us how successful Beijing is doing and convincing people that all is well in Hong Kong and apparently it's not doing a very good job. Well, we, you know, we had before a very vital business community. Everyone saw Hong Kong is an international business center. And I wonder, you know, how this has affected that business center the light, not only the vitality of it, but the appeal of it to the international financial community, for example. And whether whether he is trying to undermine that actively in favor of Shanghai. Can you talk about that. I think they, you know, of course they've tried their best over the years to build up the Shanghai stock market and to try to make Shanghai more of a base. So they don't put all their eggs in one basket as it were, but Hong Kong has still stood the its ground and over the many years until recently, because of its rule of law and basic freedoms. I mean just this week they they try to go to court and get an injunction against the, you know, Google and everyone else. Twitter, you name it, Facebook for having they saw Glory to Hong Kong on their websites to make this to get an injunction against it so that you're held in contempt of court. If you do it, but the court, at least at first said well you guys got to go back and name some defendants who you're trying to enjoy. You can't just joined the world. And so it's held held back for a while I don't think that's this there a signal the court is out to protect free speech on the internet but merely that it wants to have a solid case. If it's going to restrain, you know, the this thing what happened is that it's Glory to Hong Kong which was invented in 2019. During the protest as a Hong Kong anthem and Hong Kong never really had its own anthem before used to have the British one. Now the Chinese wanted to have the Chinese one. But the Hong Kong people in their hearts have this Glory to Hong Kong. Well, apparently, when they go play in sporting events around the world, these hosts have been playing this thinking it was the Hong Kong anthem. And so the police in Hong Kong are going after athletes and athletic organizations for failing to police this. The government wants to prove it's loyalty to Beijing it's actually gone to court to get an injunction against Glory to Hong Kong. And so I would think this will just make people want to play it more. I guess if they're not in Hong Kong, they probably will. But nonetheless, this injunction will see if it's granted. I guess it goes back to court in July after it failed in its first attempt because they didn't name any defendants. They just wanted the whole world to be a joint. Oh, you know, they're not done. You know, this is this is part of the long. And it's the new story of the week because the speculation is that is this the first step in imposing China's great firewall in Hong Kong. You know, if anything, now after the degrading liberal institutions, Hong Kong still stands out from the rest of China because you can go to Hong Kong and turn on CNN, the BBC, and, and you can Google on Google, but you know there's no Google in China. You can do all these things on Facebook. But now it seems that this is this the question being is this the first step to start closing down the free internet in Hong Kong is firewall next. Of course, we don't know the answer to any of that this point. Well, you know, back when in the days of the umbrella movement say 2019 or so. Hong Kong was on the front page over and over and over again. All those crowds. All the protests that was was really quite something. And since then, though, we've had a lot of other news. And, you know, domestic politics and Trump and the insurrection, what have you the trouble in Congress and the Supreme Court in this country have have sucked all the oxygen out of out of the headlines and the Ukraine, of course, only a year and change told it's a lot of oxygen out of the headline. And so you don't see Hong Kong on the headlines nearly as much. So, you know, who knows to you Michael for keeping the torch alive but factors that major media in the world don't cover it as much as possible and it strikes me. And that works in she's favor, because he can operate under the radar that way am I right. And so this has always been the challenge for human rights work during intense moments. It's, we get all the news media showing up I was doing serial interviews during the umbrella movement I was in Hong Kong then. But even also during 2019 protests there was, you know, even from overseas I was doing a lot of that and many of my friends were doing likewise. But now it's not in the news, many of these friends are in jail actually or in exile. And they're trying to draw attention to it they get Congress to speak up from time to time, but without events on the ground it's it is hard to keep the world's focus on issues like we're seeing in Hong Kong. But it is so important. I mean, when you think of Hong Kong, think New York, London, Paris, I'm in Paris right now actually I noticed from your camera I have a bit of a sunburn, who thought I would get a sunburn in Paris. In any case, you, you think of these big major cities Hong Kong is one of them. So, these are centers of culture centers of information centers of business of finance of just about all the things we value in the world. And when you take one of them off the playing field, it should be a newsman. It's something that we should try our best to pay attention to. Well, I want to put two things one is Paris. Thank you for joining us at night from Paris. This after it is right now 930 and this breath sun is brightly shining out. How are the French, the all of this. So, I mean, are you in your travels to Paris are you talking speaking writing about these issues and what kind of response to get from the French. They understand, you know, freedom they understand right of expression, millions of them come out in the street over issues that I'm afraid I would not go in the street for but you know they feel they have the right in fact the obligation to express themselves. So, they respond to what's happening in Hong Kong. Well, it seems like it's a very much a side issue McCron of course, and the French maybe more than him I would guess. See China more in terms of business. So there's a slight tension with the US sort of hard line on China right now here in Paris that that the McCron was, I guess he was in in Beijing recently. He was trying to keep promote business. So, how do you thread that needle so that you promote business with China and still speak up about these issues and I think that that French leadership is having a hard time threading that needle. I have some ill advised trip for my money. In any event, the other thing I was going to ask you is this what we are in 2023. It's been five years plus since this all started to degrade. I mean, actively degraded on time. And the question is, when we go from here is, is, is that what in John Paul soccer is the game up. Or is there more to come. Well, I wouldn't underestimate Hong Kong. They thought the game was up in 2014 and 15 when the umbrella movement collapsed. And then 2019 came along. But before the umbrella movement there was the 2003 article 23 protests, you know you and I talked about that that as well. We go back a long way that was 2003 and a half million protesters on the street 2004 again 2012 national education movement because of brainwashing in schools tips by Beijing and so Hong Kong has bounced back more than once right now it does look tough. I mean, because that they they've taken away the pretense that they're carrying out these basic freedoms and giving the court rain and the people rain to defend their freedoms. So it does look pretty hopeless to a lot of people, but that I'm still not willing to count them out. I think things change and people suddenly things that we don't imagine happen and we don't know where China is going to be in 10 years time. So that's a really good point and everything changes the dynamic is global. Right. And so we have this is influenced by things way beyond Hong Kong, and it is influenced by the continuing determination of people from Hong Kong and around the world to fight for democracy to fight for the guarding of liberal institutions we're not talking about the global liberal economy we're talking liberal constitutional institutions that Americans know well and guarding those has become more and more of an imperative and whether that will Hong Kong will become part of that story in the future. We'll have to stay tuned. Well it's a flat in an interdependent world we know that more every day. The question is there are a lot of people that are not aware, not thinking about this, not hearing anything about this. What is your message to them. What, what kind of mindset should they have about the events that have happened that are happening in Hong Kong, as it relates to we want to call the global sea I think it's it's right at the front line of the global fight for democracy. So if you believe that there is a challenge to democracy both in democracies with populist leaders that undermine liberal institutions of separation of borders of free speech rule of law. If you believe that if you believe that countries like China, Russia, and many smaller ones have leaders who will not guard those institutions who seek to undermine them that the powerful countries like China offer economic advantage to those countries, then you realize that and you just look at home and your own mirror, and what's going on and you'll see what's happening in Hong Kong is very relevant to to the world at large. And so guarding freedom anywhere is guarding it everywhere. Oh, wow. Thank you very much, Michael Michael Davis, a professor and author, a member of the Woodrow Wilson Institute and so many things. Thank you for your contribution to what you want to say global thought about basic freedoms. Thank you so much. Thank you. I always appreciate talking in Hawaii even when I can't be there. Thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website think tech Hawaii.com. Mahalo.