Old Friends with Bad Opinions: Hong Kong National Security Law

In life, I have been blessed with many dear old friends. We have known one another for most of our lives. I will endeavour to paint a picture of one such friendship here, without giving too much away. I do so to discuss an issue I take with the friend in question, without risk of defaming him. I will keep my description of him relatively general in order to protect his anonymity, but the issue is a rather pointless political view he has: Hong Kong has not changed since the national security law came into force in 2020. The view that the actions of the Chinese government are no different to the actions of liberal democratic governments is a common one. I hear it from both friends and foes in all walks of life. I set out my description of this particular friend here because his views are very much shaped by his background and experience in this world. I then argue against his view and explain what I think his problem is. My hope is that you can read about him below and identify other people who share his view by reference to my friend, weighing up the issue for yourself.

Before I get started about his problematic opinions, it is important that you understand my friend is an exceptionally good person. Amongst other things he is an impressive self-made made man, of a humble upbringing like my own. When he was a child, he emigrated from Western Europe to regional Australia. He has lived in many other countries and now, as an adult, his work takes him around the World.  He has neither formal nor informal education or experience in any sort of social, academic or political discipline. However, he has worked hard and is expert in a very technical field. In this way, he is an intelligent and confident man who, from his own vantage point, has seen a great deal of the World.

This vagabond life has led him to develop many strong opinions about far-flung places.  One might think his experience gives these opinions real authority. He has undoubtedly gained some sort of lay wisdom from it. However, his lack of understanding of any sort of social science has made it difficult for him to develop an enquiring mind and the ability to penetrate to the nub of social issues. Thus, he has something of the air of a colonial explorer: a competent man of experience, with an overconfident and superficial world view. Reality often resides much deeper than his eyes can see.

Friendships made in adulthood tend to be forged through convenience or like-mindedness.  Lifelong friendships are not made in the same way, such friends often being bound together with mutual history. My friend and I keep each other’s company to maintain a sort of childlike oasis in our mature lives, where we can find sanctuary from the stresses of life and joke and laugh together with the larrikinism we enjoyed as boys. However, without adult like-mindedness, we are in many ways vastly different people with as many jarring opinions on the more serious aspects of life.

You must excuse me for this lengthy context, but I am now about to arrive at a critical anecdote. He returned to the country recently. As we are wont to do on such an occasion, we made arrangements to meet in our oasis – along with our other childhood friends. It was a fine summer’s day and we enjoyed beers in the bright sun and heat. We drank and made fun of each other. We laughed and were generally merry.

I asked him about his work and he mentioned he had recently been in Hong Kong. He had been there before and he tells me about how he enjoys himself there, with the cheap food and horse-racing. Without prompt (and with some drink in him), he remarked rather inarticulately ‘And it’s the same as it was!’.  What he meant was Hong Kong remains the same as before mainland China’s national security law came into force.

I confess to having had quite a bit to drink myself. Further, I have lately been suffering from an uncharacteristic shortness of temper, owing to the pressure of unusually burdensome personal circumstances. I did not grace my friend with the well-reasoned argument his controversial opinion warranted. I slurred ‘Awh, it definitely is not!’ before rising from my camping chair to fetch another tin of beer. I apologise to you, the reader, and to my friend as well, for my cowardice in setting out my argument here - from the safety of my keyboard.

But listen: Hong Kong is not the same as it was before the national security law came into effect. Their freedom of political expression has been dealt a heavy blow. It is trite to mention Jimmy Lai, but there are better examples out there. My preferred example is the case of Chloe Cho Suet Sum and Wong Chun Wai. They were respectively gaoled and sentenced to a term in a rehabilitation centre – and for what? Publishing and distributing leaflets advocating for Hong Kong independence. Prior to the law, Hong Kongers were free to advocate for such innocuous political causes – but no longer!

To underscore the extent and gravity of the change, I draw your attention to the international judges of the bench of the Hong Kong Court of Appeal. Many have quit since the law was promulgated, citing concerns about Hong Kong turning into a totalitarian State. This cohort of judges includes an Australian, which should be entirely unsurprising to you. Can you imagine Australia enforcing such a law? A country where protesters almost constantly march through the streets of Melbourne? Indigenous Australians and their allies carrying placards which read ‘sovereignty was never ceded’? Australia would be unrecognisable if it were to oppress that sort of political communication. Our people would be devastated, particularly those on the margins of society for whose benefit such protests are often conducted. They would have no choice but to suffer in silence, without hope for their situation improving.

With the national security law, Hong Kongers hardly enjoy a right to political communication or a means of controlling their rights and liberties. Beijing has imprisoned their destiny.  304 people have been arrested under the law in only four years. That is a high rate of arrests and the citizenry are clearly willing to breach the law. Hong Kong is largely unhappier for the law’s existence and many of its people are in a state of desperation, with no legal means of salvation.

So, Hong Kong is not ‘the same as it was’ and its people are generally worse off for the changes which have transpired. Why then does my friend think it is the same?

My friend has an unusual charisma about him. He is socially gifted and able to charm anyone and everyone in his vicinity with the wink of an eye, but he has difficulty explaining things and speaking at length on topics with any level of complexity. As mentioned above, I ungraciously denied him the opportunity to expand on his opinion, but I imagine, if challenged fairly, he would simply have argued something along the lines of ‘I went there before and enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed myself as much when I went back’.  That is to say, the country was the same to him each time he went there and his experiences on both occasions were pleasant. The national security law changed nothing. The Chinese government enacting the law is no worse than any law enacted prior.

If I have done my friend justice, his view is very simplistic: Hong Kong is just the cheap food, horse-racing and other mundane experiences one has whilst passing through the country. Although his lay experience makes him confident to express this opinion, his unwillingness to train his mind on social issues, in any formal or informal way, has denied him the ability to see beyond his own reality. He projects his own happy life onto those around him because he lacks the enquiring mind to delve deeper than that. He is unable to see and acknowledge the lived experience of Hong Kongers, which is so different from his own. He is the citizen of a country whose freedom of political communication is much greater. For instance, my friend would almost definitely support Australia becoming a republic. Australian Republicanism is not strictly comparable to the Hong Kong independence movement, but it still involves protest against the existence of the State in its current form. He would not be allowed to support such a cause in a world controlled by the national security law. He fails to realise that.

What is the lesson here? People such as my friend are good people generally, but opinions such as his about Hong Kong cause great problems in the World. My friend and others like him must be willing to look beyond their own experiences and learn from the experiences of others. They must listen to the credible complaints made by others and be conscious of their own ignorance. Where they are ignorant, they must be willing to enquire and learn. Otherwise, they ignore the problems of the World and the problems fester and spread.