 Back to Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel. Here is a one o'clock block on a given Tuesday. And we have Michael Davis and Victoria Wei, both of whom are experts on Hong Kong. That's what we're gonna talk about, updating on the trouble in Hong Kong. Michael is a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. And he's also with the Woodrow Wilson Institute and finally he's associated with Jindal University in India. Victoria is an associate professor of political science in Notre Dame, am I right? If I'm not right, correct me, what are you guys, okay? All right, there's much, much more but we can't spend the whole show introducing you guys. So we're gonna get right to the point. So this trouble in Hong Kong, it hasn't gone away. Right thinking people all over the world are upset about it and believe that Xi Jinping is being very aggressive and nasty unnecessarily without a good reason, but he does it. Nobody stops him. And one of the remarkable things is that China now is on the Human Rights Committee at the United Nations. It's all backward, but it keeps on going down the track and it gets worse and worse. Michael, am I being too pessimistic about this? Is there light at the end of this tunnel somehow? Your pessimism is fully justified. I think, it's interesting the Chinese officials and the Hong Kong officials who put forth this new national security law in Hong Kong, which is really at the heart of the discussion right now. They put this national security law, they promulgated it in Hong Kong on July 30th. And it essentially locates Beijing officials in Hong Kong and makes Hong Kong's top officials very subordinate to Beijing in these committees, a so-called committee to safeguard national security and another Beijing office in Hong Kong, the office to safeguard national security. Neither one of them are subject to judicial review. And in fact, the Beijing office literally could take a defendant across the border to the mainland to try them. So basically it makes mince me of the human rights guarantees that are in the basic law of Hong Kong, which is kind of the international treaty that the joint declaration is the treaty. Basic law is enacted under that. And it's about the commitments made to Hong Kong when Hong Kong was returned to China. And it seems like those are now all being cast aside and the only hope if there is any, presumably because these officials don't listen to Hong Kong people, I suppose would be if international supporters imposed cost on China for doing this because Hong Kong isn't just, you know, another foreign place. It's one of the major, you know, cities of the world. It's the New York, the London and Hong Kong and Paris. We all know the list, Tokyo. There's just a few of these places in which all of us have some interest and all of us are aware of and it's part of our lives. And so Hong Kong people are on the front line of this, but whatever is being threatened here threatens a lot of the world as well and in Beijing's indifference to international concerns is a big concern. Victoria, you know, the people of Hong Kong are so vital. They're so energetic. They are there, the Chinese unrestrained is that certain Jules Aiqua kind of Chinese experience in Hong Kong. And yes, I totally agree with Michael that Hong Kong is like New York. It's a world center of activity and business of all those good things. And now it's being injured in its spirit, I think, with all these arrests. We've had arrests, I mean, the one that really sticks in my brain was this 12-year-old girl who she moved by a policeman too quickly and he decided she was running away from him. She was buying school supplies in a supply store and she was going to school and they wound up pinning her to the sidewalk. They tackled her and this, and of course, you know, with cell phones, this picture got out, went viral. So can you talk about the arrests? I mean, it goes from newspaper publishers to people who were involved in the 2019 demonstrations to this 12-year-old girl. Yeah, Jay. So the situation is that I think everyone is calling Hong Kong now a police date. And so you said that, you know, a 12-year-old girl, she was just basically walking down the street buying supplies. She had nothing in her hands, just a cell phone. And then when the police stopped her, she was nervous and she began running and then police went after her. And so in the US, you know, what has really sparked a lot of protests is that you have police kneeling on protesters and this is a daily occurrence in Hong Kong. And these police officers enjoy impunity. They actually know that, you know, they're all these live streaming cameras all around them. They don't seem to care. Which really means that, you know, they can do whatever they like and they would not suffer from any consequences. In fact, there have been actually officers who fired protesters and they got promoted and they became hero in Beijing's eyes. And so it's a very sad situation. How bad this is going to go, kind of relating to the question you were asking, Mike. The sad thing is that many people would say, we'll say, well, you know, don't worry too much about it, if Hong Kong just becomes a Chinese city, you know, Beijing takes over Hong Kong and look at Shenzhen across the border is a tech hub and look at Shanghai is a financial center. The problem is that in these places, most of the magnitude are happy with the regime. You have only the minority who wants to protest about, you know, because their actual interests are hurt. You have workers who don't get paid. You have peasants with less taken from them and they're not compensated. But these are not really the majority and the governments can control a lot of these people and most of the elites supports the regime. In Hong Kong, you have the majority who wants to resist Beijing's encroachment. They used to be able to protest and now any kind of protest has been rendered unlawful. And how do you silence the majority? It's just very scary thoughts that now people have the same to, yes, maybe, you know, last year, people were saying today is Xinjiang or today is Tibet's tomorrow's Hong Kong. It seems that Hong Kong is descending to that. But you said, Hong Kong people are very, very resilient. So you said earlier that the Apple Daily publisher, Jimmy Lai was arrested. And then people were like, okay, we are just going to run out to buy all the copies of the Apple Daily the next day. So people still be like, they normally will print only 75,000 copies a day, but that day they printed 550,000, they were also done. People also buy up stops. And also that their people get gathering together to put as, I'm actually one of those now that oversees Hong Kong, Hong Kong, overseas Hong Kong academics putting together an ad. And so there are a lot of these efforts. And so it's really sad, but they hope that Hong Kong will not be sending to like Tibet and Xinjiang is Hong Kong people's resilience, the will to continue to fight. Hope so, but you know, like it seems to be getting worse. The number of arrests are in the thousands. And one thing you mentioned that made me think of it is that you can post a little posted, okay? With nothing on it, blank posted. It's a statement, of course, that there's nothing on it. Or you can post a sign or carry a sign with nothing on it at all. And it's a statement and a police come after you for that, for the blank sign. So, you know, this seems to be getting worse. And my question to you is how you say that they have, you know, resilience that the people are so devoted to independence and to democracy and free speech. How long can they continue to do this when it gets worse all the time? And you're quite right. But let me just have a quick notice that most Hong Kong people are not for independence. Most Hong Kong people just really want Beijing to honor the one country to system promises, to continue today so that they can continue to enjoy the freedoms and also to have the democracy promised by the basic law. And so, you're quite right. What happened? Why people were putting up these blank posts and blank pieces of paper was because we don't really know what words are going to be banned on July 1st people, how they're liberate Hong Kong revolution of our time. And it turns out that that protest slogan was banned. So, because we don't know. And so, the people put up blank sheets of paper. And then the police said, but you guys, you guys use libel to this, a multiple assembly because you don't have a police commission. And then not only that, they took down post-it notes with messages, but they put up mile messages, Chairman Mao's messages to revalue his righteous. And then they basically, so how can you take down mile messages? Right. So it's a statement within a statement. It's what it is. It's a statement. They're even using slogans from the Chinese constitution to as a protest slogan, say, okay, is it illegal to call it the Chinese constitution? We know what they're really saying. You know, the remarkable thing is that this is getting worse. And my question to you, Michael is, why? Does it have to be this way? Xi Jinping seems to be going into space on this kind of thing. Is this getting worse and worse? And the international community is not standing up. There's no pushback from any state leadering, national leaders, same way. And we know, don't we, that he would respond if there were that, but there isn't that. Nobody's telling him to stop. So he just sees all of this, including COVID as an opportunity to be more and more repressive, mostly with Hong Kong. What's wrong with him? Well, he's a dictator. But the bottom line is, there are pushbacks. I mean, the US passed the Human Rights and Democracy Act and the president declared that Hong Kong, well, the Secretary of State declared that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous and China was not keeping its commitments. And therefore, the United States no longer treats Hong Kong as in a special way that it did before. And at the same time, they designated certain officials in Hong Kong that their bank accounts and all sorts of things could be sanctioned. So there's some pushback. The UK has announced that the BNO passport holders, which potentially is about half the population of Hong Kong if you include their families, could have a ride of a boat in Britain. So there are these various kinds of pushbacks, but I think there's a sort of powerlessness as well. I mean, at the end of the day, what do you do to China? I mean, you're not gonna send in an army to do this. It's just would be counterproductive. It would cause more damage than you would benefit to the people. So you're basically using pressure and imposing costs. But the problem is, we're getting reports now that Chinese economy is bouncing back because it's not, the COVID problem is less serious there than it is in some countries. And so they're exporting all these things. And so at the end of the day, it's not really clear what you can do except stand for your principles. And I think some in Hong Kong want to do that, but the price of doing it there on the front line is very high. For governments to do it, to sanction China to cut off this or that kind of trade also comes with a cost, but not the severe cost that we have in Hong Kong. And I don't think that in the world at large we've really come together to understand any effective way to pressure governments that don't want to behave themselves. So it becomes kind of a multi targeted process where you do this and that and see if any of that encourages improved behavior. Well, you know, in years past, I think people look to the United Nations to do that sort of thing, a multilateral reaction to things that were offensive, you know, violations of human rights and the like. But the United Nations has been neutralized and China sits on the human rights, it's the chair of the Human Rights Commission at the United Nations. And Trump has abandoned the United Nations. And so the United Nations isn't saying anything. Wouldn't it be better if the United Nations could do something? Yeah, there were some sort of people, you know, what it happens, and I've heard, I talk to, I teach human rights, so I talk to people in Geneva and elsewhere. And in these, you know, the office in the UN, China has a lot of influence just among the bureaucracy. You know, it pushes people around and puts pressure on them. And so a lot of things can't be done. But these special reporters, the other day wrote a letter condemning China. I think there were seven or eight of them. And that this is a joint letter from them. These are people who are not working for the UN, but they are kind of in a volunteer basis. A special reporter for free speech and this and that and the other thing. And they pointed out at great length why the national security law violates China's commitments to international human rights. So they're, like you said, these things that, you know, I begin to teach my next semester of human rights classes tomorrow. And you tell students, basically, it's about naming and shaming mostly. It's about publicizing what people are doing. And so these are things that we all can do. That's what we're doing here right now. We're trying to publicize and draw attention to these problems. And sometimes that's the most effective tool you have. And I think getting the word out, I've just written a book on the subject. So getting the word out in any way we can, I think is kind of what we're doing right now. Can we talk to rest about the book? Here's the cover of the book. How long did you just say what it is? Oh yeah, well, it's a book that really looks at how China has, it's not new what China's doing now. That it's over ever since 1997 when Hong Kong was handed over, they've been chipping away at the promises that were made at the autonomy and basically using all this behind the scenes initially and now openly manipulating the government and putting pressure on the government. Just this week, the chief executive of Hong Kong came out and declared that Hong Kong has no separation of powers. Now you're an American, so you know separation of powers is the heart of how you protect human rights in the country, checks and balances and all of that. We used to have that, Michael. Yeah, yeah, I know we got it the right way in court. But in any case, there you have it. And so she's saying it, but then she goes on and says, the different branches of our government are separate and we have checks and balances. So you say to yourself, well, isn't that separation of powers? So why is she saying there is no separation of powers? She's saying it because Beijing is saying it and why is Beijing saying it? Because they think the people of Hong Kong, professors like myself and lawyers are using separation of powers to constrain what Beijing can do in Hong Kong and we're not allowed to do that. Long ago in a white paper, they said that we had a confused view of what the basic law is. Yet even the Chief Justice of Hong Kong says we have separation of powers. Where do I get the book? Can I get the book on Amazon? We're gonna, it's coming out in October. So when it comes out, I'll send you a link to get it, yes. Okay. So Victoria, I want, you know, this seems to me to be a pattern that was connecting. I mean, just today in the press, there was a story of more prevalent to Galwan Pass in the Himalayas where the Chinese brought thousands of troops there with planes and tanks and what have you. They're ready to fight the Indians yet again. In the past, there's been sort of an unspoken agreement not to, maybe it was spoken, not to use guns, not to use weapons, but now there are weapons and this changes everything about the Himalayas. So they're being more aggressive with India. India doesn't like it. There are protests already in India about this. And then, you know, there was another piece a couple of days ago about Mongolia. They're pushing in Mongolia. They're trying to destroy Mongolia in cultural, religion, language and what have you. Is this necessary? Is this help China in some way? Why is China doing this really pretty much all at the same time? Look at South China Sea. Look at the moves on Taiwan. All these things it's like they're into manifest destiny all over the world. What is going on? Yeah, I think the last time we were talking to you that I were talking about on Xi Jinping, he wants to become the most accomplished emperor throughout Chinese history really in every single piece of order. And this is why we're seeing all these aggressive moves all around China's periphery. But at the same time, it is great that you brought up, you know, India and all the end of South China Sea because for so long people would say that whatever Beijing does in Hong Kong because this is, you know, it's exercising sovereignty. And so all these internal methods really do not tell us how aggressive or how peaceful Chinese is in his international relations. But we can see that what Beijing has been doing in Hong Kong has implications for the rest of the world and across all border disputes and they all happening at the same time. Now, this also goes back to what you said earlier about, you know, what about pushback? And in fact, there's been pushback. And I would say that for 20 some years that every single year that Western governments would want to look the other way about whatever was happening in Hong Kong but with the national security law no one can look the other way. And you have this, Hong Kong is so obviously descending into a police state. But what happens, it seems is that Xi Jinping is willing to pay very high prices to rein in Hong Kong. Because while Hong Kong people think that we are just trying to fight for freedom, just trying to preserve, you know, whatever we were promised in Xi Jinping's eyes, Hong Kong presents a challenge to the regime, to challenge to his own authority. And it is just like why in 1989 that Beijing roll out tanks to tanks on the streets to massacre students because they founds that we either do this or the regime is going to collapse. And this is, I think how we should look at it. But the backlash is happening. And, but they seem to be, you know, we'll rein in Hong Kong, we'll rein in all the border conflicts and then our economy is doing better than everyone else. And so we're going to make it. Yeah. And just a footnote to all of that, if he succeeds in a coronavirus vaccine he will look pretty good to the world. And my understanding is that he is now in trials. On the Chinese candidate for coronavirus vaccine. And so, you know, that'll look better. I mean, I think there's so much of this is propaganda. He wants to look good for the people. So for example, Michael, if he pulled back from Hong Kong, if all of a sudden he developed a little religion here and stopped doing this, I won't say what kind of religion that might be. Then the people in China would see him what, as weak. So he's committed. He can't pull back. Am I right? Yeah. I remember years ago when we were having other protests in Hong Kong in, I think it was 1989. And Lee Kuan Yew came up from Singapore and he wagged his finger at Hong Kong people. He says, you cannot mock a Chinese leader. And what he meant wasn't that they couldn't because they were, but that Chinese leader cannot tolerate you to mock him. He cannot appear weak. He cannot allow that kind of confrontation which is everyday politics in democracies. And the answer is simple, it's not a democracy. If you're a authoritarian dictator and you're on the top of the heap, then you better be prepared to fight to stay there. And that's an unfortunate reality. Sometimes he can be kind of brought to the table and persuaded to take softer tactics. But as Victoria said, when he thinks his position is threatened, he will get very tough. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking is that if he takes a position was very aggressive with Hong Kong and other places. And then somewhere in the middle for reasons that are not clear, he backs off that position. Then he loses his authority at home. And they see, what's wrong with this guy? He's weak now. He was strong and we had to give him respect for that even though he may not be deserved on a human rights basis. But now he's softer. And so he loses power at home. Is that, do you think he sees it that way? Therefore, if he's on the track, if he's committed to the national security law approach making Hong Kong a police state, he can't turn around, can't do it. Am I right? I think you're quite right about this in a way that every regime has to claim some kind of legitimacy, cannot get it from democracy. Then they're trying to get it from nationalism. And they also cannot get it from communism because the CCP is actually states. You have a lot of mail in Hong Kong and therefore he really cannot back down. But what is also interesting is that there are actually a lot of talks about how the international backlash that Xi Jinping has generated is also causing him a lot of troubles among the top elites. So we will see how this goes, but ultimately it's the economy that matters. If he can keep the economy going, maybe he can survive. Yeah, and if he has a vaccine, that makes it even better. I mean, he's taking credit for the economy. He's going to the world and saying, look how good we are. We had a problem, we fixed it. And now, if he does the vaccine as well, he'll be a real hero. But let me ask you this though. This is a hard question. We're in the middle of this extraordinary presidential campaign where the future of the country really depends on what happens. And it's not only who votes for whom, it's more like how much damage Trump can do to the voting infrastructure and suppression of voting to skew the result. It's really, this is better than in reality show I ever saw. Nobody knows the answer. Nobody knows what's going to happen in five minutes. But my question is, what do you think the differential is, Victoria, from a political science point of view, vis-à-vis Hong Kong? And for that matter, China in general. If Trump wins or Biden wins, how do you see the two possibilities unfolding? Yeah, so I think that there's one thing that's really important to keep in mind is that for both a lot of Americans as well on the left in particular, and also Hong Kongers, Hong Kong Americans, they see the Chinese Communist Party as being on the left wing. And so when they want to find an ally, then they want to say that, then they want to go to the other side. So we see actually a lot of Hong Kongers saying that they, you know, Trump save us and all that. But at the same time, the Hong Kong cause has to be really bipartisan. It was really bipartisan support that got the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed. At the same time, just the administration, just the US government imposing sanctions, that's not enough. You need all these other Western allies joining forces. But there's another thing that's also interesting when we were talking about separation of powers earlier, there's that in the US, you have appointment power. Basically the US president and the Hong Kong Chief Executive, both are very immense appointment powers. The difference is that the Chief Executive of Hong Kong is not elected, whereas the US president is. And this is something that people should really pay attention to exercise the vote. You know, Michael, I wonder, you know, the part of that national security law is you don't have to be in Hong Kong to violate it. You could be somewhere else. And I don't know if they tested that yet, but they may know some, somebody in some of the country makes some statement that Beijing feels is a violation of that law. And then later on, that person winds up in either China or Hong Kong and they arrest them. Very troublesome. But my question to you is, is this affecting the way Chinese people or Hong Kongers who are outside of Hong Kong, outside of China talk about it? Is this suppressing free discussion outside of China as well? Well, it does obviously if people think that they're going to be coming and going to China, a lot of people outside who are of Chinese origin might have business arrangements that involve them traveling to the country. And I think there's no doubt that even professors, it doesn't have to be businessmen. It can be any kind of person who goes to China. Then I think they're going to be cautious that they don't want to be seen too aggressively criticizing China or attacking the regime. So no doubt it will have that impact. Yeah, of course there are other people and other night in the streets of New York, a protest was going on over this who are very determined, even more determined in the face of these developments to stand up to China and to bring other people to the table to understand what's going on. So it cuts both ways, but no question. There have been surveys of universities and universities around the United States where people teach courses on China are having conversations about how to do this without getting their students in trouble and so on. And China has put out warrants for arrest for Americans. Samuel Chu, who's at the Hong Kong Democracy Council has a warrant for his arrest. He's an American citizen because he petitioned his own government, the United States government to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and other acts and so on. And that he's a lobbyist, he's an activist, there's an arrest warrant for him. So these concerns that people have are real and the law does reach worldwide. Victoria, last question. We're not talking to countries now, we're not talking to heads of state, we're not talking to United Nations officials, we're talking to just our viewers, wherever they are. Some of them are here in the United States, others are in Asia, ordinary viewers. What would you say to them about how to look at all this? How to see it in terms of what they might think about it and maybe more to the point, what they might do about it to express the moral view here? It is basically the dying of the killing of a city, of a people that really wants to defend their freedom. And so the rest of the world, the more attention they pay to Hong Kong then the better of Hong Kong people become. And also lobby your own government, whatever that is, to protect Hong Kong, to also continue to destruct it by autonomy, impose sanctions on officials, and at the same time provide asylum and refugee status to those who wants to flee and manage to flee. Yes. Michael, would you add anything finally to that? No, I think that's exactly right. Mostly people have to reach out to their own governments. And at the end of the day, as we discussed earlier, is if there's enough cost in bullying people, whether it's Indians or Hong Kongers or Tibetans, then perhaps you can discourage that and bring about change. Frankly, if Beijing just carried out its commitments under the basic law, Hong Kong would not be protesting. I quite frankly, I don't think protesters would be able to mobilize people if these commitments for democratic reform and the sensual non-interference in Hong Kong were carried out. It's autonomy was maintained. I think we wouldn't be seeing any of this. Okay, we're about done. I just wanted to tell you for a discussion earlier that I do not intend to watch the movie Mulan, the Disney movie Mulan. And it's not because it costs $30 American dollars to get it on cable. It's because Joshua Wan, a primary outspoken protester, recommends that we all boycott the movie because the movie was made in Xinjiang. And I'm good for that, not only the $30, but that. Thank you very much, Victoria. Thank you very much, Michael. Great to have you guys on the show. There'll be so much more about Hong Kong, I'm sad to say, and we'll be back to you to cover it some more. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jeff.