Free Hong Kong

China’s signed promise in the handover of Hong Kong from British rule on July 1, 1997, was that all aspects of life in the vibrant city would “remain unchanged for 50 years.” But Beijing couldn’t even make it to the halfway mark, which came yesterday. The Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong stated that “The laws currently in force in Hong Kong will remain basically unchanged” (Section 3.3), and “The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be ensured by law” (Section 3.5).

Beijing is treating these promises as though they were printed not on parchment but toilet paper.

It was exactly two years ago that the Communist masters on the mainland passed their national security law for Hong Kong, stripping away rights of speech, press and association. That was followed by arrests, closures of newspapers, suppression of protests and everything else you might expect from a dictatorship.

The quarter-century anniversary of the transfer from the British prompted Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, to visit Hong Kong and cluck about what the formerly free city is becoming. It also prompted us to go back and read our warning from 1997, in an editorial called “Don’t stop the presses in Hong Kong.” We said the “ready gauge” of continued liberty would be “Hong Kong’s vital and raucous free press” and “pressure on the press to conform to the party line will be an ominous sign of Beijing’s true intentions.”

Sure enough, the city’s free press has been smothered, and with it, its people. Hong Kong will only be free again when China becomes free.