
“The whole world ought to be concerned”: HK lawyers on Beijing’s “clarification” - endswapper
http://qz.com/830533/the-whole-world-ought-to-be-concerned-hong-kong-lawyers-react-to-beijings-clarification-on-oaths/
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
What is the world going to do?

Boycott Chinese goods? That would entail massive economic pain.

Do a UN resolution? China is a permanent member of the Security Council with
veto power.

Launch a military intervention? This would make people wish for a low casualty
war like WW2.

Secretly arm a Hong Kong insurgency? No matter what arms Hong Kong has, China
could destroy the rebellion with an army armed only with sticks due to the
massive population difference.

There honestly is pretty much nothing Hog Kong or the rest of the world can do
except whine.

~~~
ebp
This is a silly reply.

We should calmly and firmly articulate our objection to the Beijing's hardball
tactics. This interpretation, like PRC behavior in the South China Sea,
represents further evidence that Beijing has little regard for rules that
constrain their power to act. If the international system has an investment in
rule of law, we should see these actions as evidence that China is an
unreliable partner in a rules-based order. We should be wary of including
China in liberal institutions that are at the core of that order. Nations
around the globe should adjust their relations with China accordingly.

A good start would be public statements supporting rule of law and respect for
the use of the judicial system to resolve issues questions of legal
interpretation. Foreign businesses with significant operations in Hong Kong
should take note that Hong Kong is at risk of becoming more like mainland
China (i.e. weaker courts, stronger political control), and consider moving
operations if this would impact their operations or bottom line.

~~~
M_Grey
A public statement. So, to be charitable to the person you're replying to,
that would be filed under "whining". The fact that we have no real moral
authority with which to whine doesn't help either.

~~~
ebp
Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care
about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in
other circumstances?"

Should we see China as a reliable partner in the South China Sea? (No.) What
would a regional economic order look like under China? (Maybe TTP isn't so
terrible.) Should companies continue to use Hong Kong as a base for legal
operations in China and SE Asia? (E.g. Singapore is looking better and better
for arbitration.) Certainly, Taiwan should take note what any promised
autonomy would look like if China offers a grand bargain to reunify.

Countries should see how China acts, note it, and behave accordingly.

~~~
M_Grey
>Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care
about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in
other circumstances?"

Well the answers are clearly: "No" and "A lot" respectively. If you think the
world needs the US of all countries to trumpet that fact, you're delusional.
The problem there is that they see how we act too, and they're probably not so
dim that they can't appreciate why we get off on pointing fingers at "bad
guys".

This just in: We're the bad guys too... we're all pretty bad guys in direct
proportion to the power we wield, and in inverse proportion to our
accountability. China, Russia, the US... lots of power, virtually no
accountability.

A strongly worded statement is just a bad joke that people see through these
days.

------
vinceguidry
> “I do not know how we are supposed to proceed,” Dennis Kwok, a lawyer and
> legislator said.

Call your local Communist Party office. They will tell you how to proceed.

Oh you wanted rule of law and freedom of expression? Move somewhere that
respects it.

The Chinese government gives approximately 0 shits about Hong Kong's silly
foreign ideas and just wants to extract as much wealth from the area as
possible before redwashing it. Their days of freedom were numbered from the
day the Brits took over.

~~~
endswapper
Acquiesce or move are not adequate options.

Bringing the matter to the public stage and attempting to hold Beijing
accountable is the best available option.

Will this influence Beijing? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Will 10 or 100 instances like this, or disputes in the South China Sea
identify Beijing as a bad actor? Yes.

I don't disagree with where you are coming from, but it sounds like you are
endorsing giving up.

Matters such is this will take decades, now is not the time to give up for the
Hong Kong or Chinese citizens that seek freedom.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> Acquiesce or move are not adequate options.

We live in an inadequate world.

(See also: ongoing US election, or Erdogan's purges in Turkey)

~~~
endswapper
The point is that the options are not binary as proposed by the post I was
responding to.

I'd argue the third option, which I proposed, is adequate, and the best if
only because it includes hope over the long-term.

------
mathattack
Forgive my being naive, but isn't HK part of China? Why is it the rest of the
world's problem? If China wants to mess up one of the world's great cities,
it's their right. If the US wants to mess up New Orleans, it's not for other
countries to intervene.

~~~
jahewson
Unlike New Orleans, Hong Kong was not a part of its current country just 19
years ago, but was under the control of Britain. It's also one of the world's
most important financial centers. So it is deeply connected to the outside
world and its existence and current status are owed entirely to outside forces
and agreements with them.

Hong Kong may be a part of China but China does not own the people of Hong
Kong like some sort of property.

~~~
vkou
They never chose to be part of the British empire... Which gave them back to
China.

~~~
jahewson
True, but they didn't choose to leave it either. Britain had agreed 100 years
earlier to return HK to China and kept its promise.

Really HK should have become independent, but no doubt China would still claim
it as theirs.

~~~
jza00425
Did they have even have a choice under Britain control? Nowadays at least you
hear the voice

~~~
jahewson
Yes, they were eventually self-governing under the British and were British
citizens from 1904 onwards. Though it was a long and winding transition from a
colony to a self-governing territory.

------
jza00425
The media really downplayed what those two did. I really want to know what
American gonna do if Hillary call all African American the n word after she
wins.

------
bitwize
Inasmuch as Trump gets significant mindshare/voteshare today, it's largely
because of fears that something similar might happen here.

Hillaty Clinton has stated that she thinks the SCOUTS decisions in _Citizens
United_ and _Heller v. DC_ were wrong. She wants do-overs on them both, and
will nominate only justices who will reinterpret the laws as she sees fit.

I'm no Trump supporter but that is _scary_. Inasmuch as we have a constitution
that means anything, it means the rights so protected by that constitution
can't be just interpreted away by nine men and women who don't think you
should have them anymore.

And no, _Citizens United_ isn't about campaign finance or "getting the money
out of politics". It was about a corporation paying for their own movie to be
distributed and advertised with their own dollars. The movie could be wildly
inaccurate and needlessly fearmongering -- and probably is, I've never seen it
-- but the First Amendment should nevertheless forbid government from banning
private entities from producing or exhibiting it, or the amendment has not
very much meaning at all.

~~~
blackguardx
My understanding of the case is different that yours. I don't want to get into
a political disagreement so I'll leave it at that.

I think it is unfortunate that Hillary made that statement about SCOTUS, but
at the same time it is not unprecedented for SCOTUS to reverse itself. Look at
Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. There are many others as
well.

Also, it seems disingenuous to call out Hillary for this and not Donald Trump
(and many more republicans) who only want to nominate SCOTUS justices who will
strike down Roe v. Wade.

~~~
MrZongle2
_" Also, it seems disingenuous to call out Hillary for this and not Donald
Trump (and many more republicans) who only want to nominate SCOTUS justices
who will strike down Roe v. Wade."_

Every election, the boogeyman of a Republican-stacked SCOTUS tearing down Roe
v. Wade is brought up. There have been _five_ Republicans in office following
the ruling (Nixon [in office at the time], Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43)
and it has yet to happen, under far more conservative atmospheres.

I don't buy the fearmongering on this front.

~~~
blackguardx
Trump[1] and Cruz have said this. Are they lying?

In the past, the supreme court wasn't the political football it has become
today.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/19/trump-ill-appoint-supreme-
cou...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/19/trump-ill-appoint-supreme-court-
justices-to-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-case.html)

~~~
ubernostrum
Slight counterpoint:

I believe Republicans want to campaign on overturning _Roe_ , and do want to
chip away at it in ways which don't completely overturn, but that they want to
be able to _continue_ campaigning on overturning it, forever.

They're not idiots. They know they have a topic that gets a lot of single-
issue voters to go out and cast ballots every election. And they know public
opinion is overwhelmingly against fully overturning _Roe_ , so if they ever
succeeded they'd be in trouble: a lot of the country would be against them,
and the single-issue hotheads would no longer have a righteous cause to
motivate them to vote.

So what they want is the campaign issue, not the reality of actually
overturning it.

