China, The Encroaching Dragon

By: Joe Mauricio

 

For almost three months, thousands of people have braved the sweltering summer heat in a series of well-orchestrated rallies against an unpopular bill that has come to symbolize concerns about encroachment of the mainland Chinese government on their semi-autonomous land —Hong Kong.

But the encroachment of Beijing government is not a new news. The Chinese government has already encroached on their weak sovereign neighboring nations like Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Japan by taking over islands after island that belong to the sovereign nations of Asia.

Hong Kong Revolution is war, and no war is without bloodshed. Since early June, Hong Kong has been embroiled in its worst political crisis in decades. The wave of protests sparked by the controversial extradition bill.

How and why Hong-Kongers managed to keep going for months, and in such large number, waging wave-after-wave to protest and oppose the encroachment from China.

One major point of contention concerns whether to resort to non-peaceful nation and how close to skirt with violence. The rally organizers called on the British government to declare that China is interfering, is violating a 1984 Treaty with Britain that anticipated Hong Kong’s special status after Britain handed it over to China in 1997. They also urged the United States Congress to pass a law that would punish Hong Kong officials who violated the agreement.

The G-7 (composed of seven economic powers of the world, China, US, Russia, England, South Korea, Germany and Canada) was right to re-affirm the importance of the Sino-British joint declaration, which guaranteed that Hong Kong’s way of life would be maintained until 2047.

Beijing reacted with predictable hostility, but other countries should not be deterred. The risks are real, and the people of Hong Kong had very little on their side. They need the international communities’ attention and support.

These questions are critical because the struggle over Hong Kong’s future has far-reaching international ramifications–symbolic, political and practical. Crushing of its freedoms would be a grim triumph for the advancing forces of global authoritarianism. The economic impact on already volatile world markets and trades, where Hong Kong’s role is critical, would also raise fundamental questions about the Xi ascendancy and China’s direction of travel.

How about the 130,000 Filipinos living and working in Hong Kong? What would the future befall them? Would they be under the jurisdiction of China, if found guilty of a crime? A trial in China? Prison in China?##