Now Canada should stand up for Hong Kong

Canada’s “Two Michaels” suddenly have a lot more company as helpless political prisoners of China.

By late Wednesday, Hong Kong police in riot gear had arrested 370 protesters, including 10 who were charged under the new national security law just passed by China’s authoritarian rulers. The protesters’ supposed offences, which included carrying banners proclaiming “Hong Kong Independence,” could earn them sentences of life imprisonment if they’re convicted under this draconian legislation.

The future they face is grim. So, too, is the future staring at Hong Kong’s 7.5 million other citizens. The Western-style freedoms they’ve cherished for decades — including the right to free speech and association — have been brutally quashed. Replacing them are the whims of a repressive Hong-Kong puppet regime, the strings of which are firmly in the hands of China’s dictatorial President Xi Jinping.

The new security law makes it a serious crime to provoke “hatred” of the Chinese government or authorities in Hong Kong — whatever that signifies, and its true meaning has been kept deliberately vague. What is clear is that expressions of dissent or calls for change that were previously accepted as protected speech are now forbidden.

What’s clear is that trials can now be held in secret, suspects cannot expect to be granted bail and mainland Chinese security personnel can legally operate in Hong Kong with impunity. Indeed anyone in Hong Kong deemed suspicious — including foreigners — can be spirited away to the mainland for trial.

Freedom-lovers everywhere should be alarmed. In passing such a law, the Chinese government has ripped up the deal it made 23 years ago this week with the United Kingdom. That legal agreement meant Hong Kong — until then a British colony — would become part of China, but allowed to retain the special freedoms that had helped build it into a global economic powerhouse.

For everyone who hoped China might be persuaded to release Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor from the tiny jail cells that have held them for 571 days, the crackdown in Hong Kong should provide a reality check. In the mind of President Xi, the rule of law apparently means any law he rules valid.

As the Chinese superpower grows in economic, technological and military might, its once-smiling mask has slipped down to reveal a scowling, imperious bully. China, for instance, no longer pretends it didn’t arrest Kovrig and Spavor in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou, who’s wanted in the United States on allegations of fraud.

As unpleasant as it is to be caught in such hostage diplomacy, the Canadian government should now be braced for the politically motivated arrest of a Canadian who travels to Hong Kong to do business — or for that matter of one or more of the 300,000 Canadian citizens currently living in that city. Pandemic or not, this country should start planning to accept a new influx of people — Canadian citizens or foreign nationals — fleeing Hong Kong.

As it does this, Ottawa should begin a drastic overhaul of its strategy for future Canada-China relations. The status quo isn’t working. The Chinese boot trampling Hong Kong liberties should also spur the Canadian government to search for new ways to persuade China that with great power comes the great responsibility to respect civil rights. This will involve helping to create an international coalition of like-minded democracies, and there is no guarantee the initiative will succeed.

But in doing the morally right thing and standing up for Hong Kong, Canada can also stand up for Kovrig and Spavor.