Benedict Rogers: Better to stand up for free world late than never

This week Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab suspended the extradition agreement with Hong Kong – “immediately and indefinitely”. He also extended to Hong Kong the arms embargo Britain has placed on China since 1989. He told Parliament – and Hong Kong – “The UK is watching and the whole world is watching”.

These are very welcome steps, and combined with Britain’s generous offer to British National Overseas (BNO) passport holders they represent a robust response to the crisis in Hong Kong. There is of course more to do – and I won’t stop advocating further measures, including targeted sanctions, the creation of a United Nations envoy or rapporteur, and co-ordinated measures among like-minded countries to offer a lifeboat rescue package to help non-BNO Hongkongers in grave danger. But it is wise not to fire all your ammunition in one go, and so we can expect to see further measures in the weeks to come.

Focusing on the extradition question for now, I am glad that Britain – along with Australia, Canada and the United States – has suspended its agreement with Hong Kong. Given the extraterritorial aspect of Article 38 of the new national security law, which effectively says that anyone, anywhere in the world can be in breach of the national security law, even if they are not Hongkongers, it is right to do so. Otherwise – theoretically at least – presumably China could demand my extradition, and that of many activists, journalists and politicians around the world. More seriously, many Hong Kong activists living in countries with extradition agreements could have been in danger. Suspending extradition arrangements sends a strong, symbolic message, that countries that value human rights and the rule of law no longer trust Hong Kong’s system to do the same.

There are many illustrations that could be made of the potential impact of Article 38 – and thus the significance of the suspension of extradition agreements. Let me give just three.

The day after Dominic Raab made his announcement, I met two frontline protesters from Hong Kong who recently arrived in Britain. I had intended to meet them for perhaps an hour, and ended up spending five hours together. It was a deeply moving time. Two bright, young, charming and courageous people now suddenly find themselves uprooted to a new country, because their lives would be in danger if they remained in Hong Kong.

As we walked along Wimbledon Common, deep in conversation, I heard a voice call my name. I looked up and found we had bumped into the Minister of State responsible for human rights in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lord Ahmad, out for an evening stroll in the sunshine with his wife. I introduced the two Hongkongers to the Minister, and they immediately thanked him for his government’s decision on extradition. We had a few minutes of moving conversation, in which the Minister – with sincere personal commitment – assured my friends that Britain would do everything it could to help people like them, and to stand up for Hong Kong, and that he personally would be making a statement in the House of Lords the next day.

As we moved on, my two friends looked astonished. They didn’t think one could just bump into a government minister out for a walk, let alone a Foreign Office Minister. That’s the value of our democracy.

With the assurance of the suspension of the extradition agreement and the encouraging words from the Minister, my two friends then told me their story.

And then something extraordinary happened. At the end of dinner one of them asked to take a photograph. I agreed, but presumed it would just be for private use. My friend smiled. “No – post it on social media,” he said. I asked several times if he really thought that was a good idea. I had assumed he would want to be low profile. But he insisted. Then he told me what he wanted me to say. “You can write: "Hon Bo Sun" from 831 Prince Edward station incident is not dead.”

My friend is “Hon Bo Sun”, from the Prince Edward MTR station attack on August 31 last year. And at his request, I can tell Hongkongers that he is alive and well and I will do whatever I can to help him. If Britain had not suspended the extradition agreement, he may well have had reasons to be afraid. So I am glad my government has done the right thing, for Hon Bo Sun and so many others.

As a second example, I have come to know a courageous young Australian activist who has been the target of an extraordinary campaign of harassment by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – Drew Pavlou .

For speaking out about human rights in China – and Hong Kong – Drew has faced not only shocking violence and threats to his life and his mother’s from the Chinese regime’s thugs in Australia, but a grave injustice at the hands of his own university. This 20 year-old student who organised protests and sit-ins to highlight the appalling human rights crisis in China has been suspended by the University of Queensland for doing so.

Drew’s case has received extensive media attention in recent months, well beyond Australia. Two British Members of Parliament have recently written to the Australian High Commissioner expressing their concern, saying his case “typifies the danger that China poses to the world at large”. Earlier this month Drew was invited to address a meeting in the British Parliament , alongside an anonymous Hong Kong student from Sheffield University who described how pro-CCP thugs posted “bounties”, promising rewards for assaults on Hong Kong students. I know of other Hongkongers who have faced outrageous intimidation in British universities from pro-CCP mainland Chinese students – which is an attack not only on them, but on us. The CCP represents a growing threat to academic freedom, freedom of expression and other liberties around the world – and the world is finally waking up to this.

Australia has taken a strong stand on Hong Kong – and on wider China issues – and should be commended for doing so. But the University of Queensland should be called to account for its treatment of Drew. Presumably if Australia had not suspended its extradition agreement, the CCP’s campaign against Drew may have taken an even more dangerous turn.

The third example draws on my own experiences. I have not faced the life-threatening dangers of Hon Bo Sun, nor the physical attacks endured by Drew, but over the past three years I have encountered the CCP in my letterbox, among my neighbours, in my interactions with Members of Parliament, in my email in-box and among my friends.

Relentlessly, for the past three years, a supposed superpower that ought to have far bigger issues to worry about than an activist in suburban London has nevertheless focused on me and my friends in various bizarre ways.

Let me set out in five ways how the CCP has intruded into my life.

First, in October 2017 I was denied entry to Hong Kong, the city which had once been my home, where I had begun my working life.

Second, around the same time, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, placed a telephone call to the then Conservative Party Chairman about me. I do not know what was said in that call, but trusted sources tell me it took place. A short time later I was removed from the Conservative Party Candidates List, and given a very odd explanation for the decision.

Third, for over two years I received a succession of harassing, intimidatory letters by post from Hong Kong – sent not only to me but my neighbours – often with my photo, and the caption “Watch Him”. This has transformed into harassing emails – and morphed into fake and often ridiculous emails in my own name but not from me, sent to MPs, journalists and other influencers.

My mother – who lives in a different part of Britain – has received threatening letters too, telling her to tell her son to shut up. Thankfully she took the view that she had given up trying to tell me to shut up long ago.

Other friends, including several Members of Parliament, have received similar attempts at intimidation.

Fourth, I experienced the Chinese regime’s infamous “wolf-warrior diplomacy” when I was the initial target of Chinese State television reporter Kong Linlin’s wrath at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference two years ago. She screamed at me, accusing me of being “anti-China”, and then assaulted a volunteer. She was later arrested, charged and convicted with common assault.

And fifth, several Members of Parliament have been lobbied by the Chinese Embassy in an attempt to silence me. To their credit, none of them did so – they simply informed me that they had been approached. The first was an MP who was asked to request me to withdraw an article about Hong Kong before publication. Another MP was lobbied to tell me not to go to Hong Kong – just prior to my being denied entry. Yet another found at a meeting with the Chinese ambassador to discuss big global issues that the first agenda item was silencing me. And there was an occasion where a senior MP spoke highly of me to the Chinese Ambassador over lunch, causing him to choke on his soup.

None of what I have experienced remotely compares with the dangers faced by people in Chinese territory, or by overseas Chinese and Hongkongers still facing the long arm of the regime. Indeed, by comparison it is not even worth mentioning. Yet it is a small part of the overall picture to which the free world is increasingly waking up. A picture of a regime that has become much more repressive against its own people, and much more aggressive well beyond its borders.

That picture is exposed in detail in a new book by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg – Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World – which illustrates just how deeply the CCP has infiltrated key institutions in the free world. If we who still have freedom want to preserve it, for ourselves and in order to be able to speak for those who need our help, we must act fast.

That is why the current shifts in policy towards Beijing across the free world are so important. They are long overdue, and more changes are needed, but actions taken by Washington, DC, London, Canberra and Ottawa in particular are a very welcome start.

Arguably it was our failure to stand up earlier that emboldened Beijing, but it is better to act late than never. We must continue on the path of abandoning our strategic dependency on China, diversifying our supply chains, calling the perpetrators of grave human rights violations to account and protecting our national security.

Ending extradition agreements with Hong Kong is a good start. It protects people like Hon Bo Sun, Drew and even me – and it sends a clear message. We are ending the shameful era of “kowtow” diplomacy, and standing up for our values once again.

Benedict Rogers is the Co-founder and Chair of Hong Kong Watch. The article was published in Apple Daily on 24 July 2020. (Photo: Studio Incendo)