This week, China passed a sweeping national security law that will fundamentally change the way that Hong Kong operates.
The law grants the central government in Beijing the ability to crack down on dissidents in Hong Kong and imprison them, possibly for life.
It casts aside the pretense of the “one country, two systems” which Beijing had long-touted to placate residents of the city and used to woo the government of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a renegade province.
The law itself is filled with ambiguities which are undoubtedly intentional and will most likely be interpreted to favor whatever outcome that Beijing wants.
Article 38
Perhaps the most blatant and worrying aspect of the new law is Article 38, which states:
“This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region”
Essentially, this means that any foreigner that criticizes the situation in Hong Kong or China can be tried for those crimes in Hong Kong, regardless of whether or not the criticisms were made in the territory.
So any newspaper articles, editorials, blog posts, Facebook posts, and tweets that are critical of the Chinese government can be used to prosecute and arrest visitors to Hong Kong even if those comments were not made inside the city.
The implications that this has for issues including freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and the freedom of the arts, is wide-ranging and damning.
China finds itself reversing course and leaping head-first into the totalitarian autocracy of the 1960s and 1970s that it tried so hard to escape from after the end of the cold war.
Under Xi Jinping, China has become a surveillance state far worse than any Orwellian nightmare, one that runs actual concentration camps where people are sterilized.
Thailand
To Thais watching in horror and expressing solidarity with their Hong Kong brethren, the nature of article 38 should also give us pause and let us reflect on the realities at home.
Because here in our own country, we have similar laws that have been used to silence dissidents, not just in Thailand, but those living abroad and possessing different nationalities.
Our lese majeste laws and computer crime laws are similarly sweeping and its jurisdiction is murky and wide-ranging.
Let us not forget the case of Joe Gordon, a Thai-born American Citizen, who was arrested in Thailand for posting blog posts in the United States deemed to be anti-monarchy and in violation of lese majeste laws and computer crime laws.
As we express our solidarity with those suffering under the yoke of oppression, let us not forget that it doesn’t just end at the borders of Hong Kong but extends to the greater region.
Sweeping laws designed to curb freedom and ensure the rule of autocrats have been passed throughout this region whether it is in Thailand, Hong Kong, or even in Cambodia and the Philippines.
The struggle for freedom is the struggle of all against all tyranny, let us never forget that.
