Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said in an article in the South China Morning Post on Monday (March 15) that the revision of Hong Kong‘s electoral system just passed by the Chinese Communist Party‘s National People’s Congress is to ensure that “patriots rule Hong Kong” and “one country, two systems”, and a U.S. Writer countered that what Cui sees as A U.S. writer countered that a patriot in Cui’s eyes is anti-China if he does not support the Chinese Communist Party.
Before the first official meeting between the U.S. and China, the Chinese authorities used the domestic and foreign media to release Cui Tiankai’s opinion, which was seen as a message to the United States. Taylor Millard, a columnist for the American Heritage website HotAir, countered that Cui’s claim that “patriots rule Hong Kong” is both vague and frightening because patriotism is a very malleable word, and political factions that disagree with the people of Hong Kong or have very different goals can easily declare their allegiance. The criteria for a “patriot” in Cui’s eyes is even simpler – you either support the Chinese Communist Party or you are anti-China.
He mocked Cui’s theory of external forces. Cui said that those who are causing trouble and mischief in Hong Kong have been supported by forces outside the country; to improve the electoral system in Hong Kong is to eliminate hidden dangers and risks from the institutional mechanism; this is also a constitutional responsibility of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to close the loopholes in the Hong Kong system after the enactment of the law on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong.
According to Millard, Cui’s “external forces” theory is clearly an accusation of the meetings between German and American officials and Hong Kong democracy activists after the Hong Kong government considered repealing the anti-China bill in 2019.
Given that, does Choi consider Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s attendance at the 2020 World Economic Forum – which was attended by then-U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel – to be a meeting with “external forces”? In addition, she had lunch with the Prime Minister of Luxembourg.
Millard disagreed with Cui Tiankai’s assertion that Hong Kong has become more democratic since the Communist takeover.
He cited the fact that the first direct election of Hong Kong’s legislators took place in 1991, after the Basic Law was passed, when Hong Kong was still a British colony, and that Cui ignored two important facts. legislation in Hong Kong.
The Green Paper, titled “Green Paper on Representative Government – The Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong”, was a consultation paper on Hong Kong’s political system published by the Hong Kong government on 18 July 1984. This paper was regarded as the beginning of Hong Kong’s political reform and was the first Time that the Hong Kong government studied the feasibility of the development of representative government in Hong Kong.
In November 1984, the Hong Kong government published a White Paper: Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong, which aimed to set out the Hong Kong government’s intentions for the next stage of representative government at the central level of the Hong Kong government in 1985.
According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 and the Basic Law, Hong Kong would eventually achieve universal suffrage, and the Chief Executive and all members of the Legislative Council of the HKSAR would be directly elected by all eligible voters.
Moreover, in the Basic Law, which provides that Hong Kong people enjoy a high degree of autonomy and that Hong Kong is to be governed by Hong Kong people (it does not say anything about the so-called patriots), the sweeping changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system adopted by the Chinese Communist Party’s National People’s Congress violate both the Declaration and Annexes I and II of the Basic Law.
Millard said the CCP claims to uphold democracy, but its moves are a threat to freedom. Hong Kong people can choose the members of the Legislative Council, but the problem is that the Chinese Communist Party picks who gets into the Legislative Council in the name of ensuring that “patriots rule Hong Kong,” which would lead to an election policy similar to that of mainland China.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will meet in Alaska on March 18 and 19 with Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the first meeting between the highest-level officials of the two countries since the Biden administration took office.
The meeting will be an opportunity to understand the future direction of U.S.-China relations and a test of the Biden Administration‘s toughness on China Policy.
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