The people of Hong Kong are asking for your help

Photo by Joseph Chan on Unsplash

For three consecutive months millions of the people of Hong Kong, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), have been taking to the streets. They have been demonstrating against the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill proposed by Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of the province. This proposed law has become the focal point of the most significant developments in China since Tiananmen Square. The story must be told.

Since the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Hong Kong province was under British rule. British imperialism was wrong in many ways. But it also had a good side. When Mao Zedong came to power, the British government shielded Hong Kong from the evils of communism. Thus, while an estimated 60 million Chinese citizens were killed across the border, Hong Kong became one of the freest and most prosperous cities in the world.

Then, a series of diplomatic maneuvers beginning in the early 1970s led to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. In this declaration, Britain agreed to hand over Hong Kong to communist China.

Citizens of Hong Kong were rightly alarmed. So, as part of this agreement, the PRC promised to allow Hong Kong to remain self-governing for 50 years after the July 1, 1997 handover date. A “one country, two systems” principle guaranteed that the socialist system of the PRC cannot be practiced in Hong Kong until 2047. Until then, the province was to retain its own democratic system of legislation and universal suffrage.


July 1, 1997 Britain-PRC handover

It’s one thing to make a promise. It is quite another to keep it. Hong Kong citizens were wary of communist China’s intentions. In the decade leading up to the handover, tens of thousands of people attempted to escape to Britain rather than fall under communist rule.

Their fears were well-justified. As the years have passed since the handover, mainland China has inexorably tightened its grip on Hong Kong. Corporations and institutions that remain free on paper, find themselves increasingly under the control of the communist central government. Even elected officials in Hong Kong dance to the tune of the communist central leadership.

That’s where the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill comes in. Although it was introduced into the legislature by Hong Kong’s chief executive, it is designed to undermine Hong Kong’s self-governance. The bill would allow people from the self-governing province to be arrested and handed over for punishment to communist officials on the mainland.

The problem is that Hong Kong citizens would be instantly subject to laws that they did not and would not pass by self-governance. This end-run around the legislative process would effectively subjugate them to the PRC in violation of the agreement.

 

When news of the bill filtered out in March, there were scattered protests throughout the province. Beginning in earnest on June 9, protesters numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Numbers continued to grow. By Wednesday, June 12, riot police were deployed using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the peaceful crowds.

During the course of that week, something remarkable happened. Crowds as large as 2 million were heard singing a Christian hymn. “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” became the anthem of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. The remarkable thing is that there are only about 750,000 Christians in the province, yet the song was heard everywhere.

On June 15, Lam announced that she had suspended the extradition bill. But the crowds did not go away. They noted that “suspension” is not a meaningful category. Unless the bill is formally withdrawn, it can be brought back as soon as the crowds go home. This, along with four other demands, kept the demonstrations going throughout the summer.

The corrupt government repeatedly sought to characterize the demonstration as a riot and an unlawful mob. But the anthem prevented this from happening. Legally speaking, religious assemblies are exempt from laws that require a permit for public assemblies. The anthem qualified them to assemble lawfully without a permit. On another level, the song has colored the demonstrations with a decidedly Christian ethos of peaceful standing for the truth.

Christians make up only ten percent of the population in Hong Kong, but they have a great deal at stake should the extradition bill be enacted. Over the past year the world has watched communist China tear down Christian churches, arrest Christian pastors, disperse worshipping congregations and destroy Bibles with other Christian literature.


PRC demolishes an "illegal" church, January 11, 2018

The communist party has passed numerous draconian laws that prevent Christians from evangelizing, gathering, teaching their children, building churches and a host of other normal religious activities. An extradition law in Hong Kong would suddenly put every Christian at risk of being extradited for crimes that are not crimes in Hong Kong.

Of course, not only Christians are persecuted in communist China. The New York Times recently reported that 230,000 Muslim Uyghurs have been sentenced to prisons and re-education camps. Many have had children taken away to be raised by communist parents. In general, religious atrocities are picking up as Xi Jinping consolidates power.

Communists persecute religion generally because in the communist system, there can be no rivals to the central power. Citizens that acknowledge a transcendent authority above the government are threats to its power. More particularly, the PRC sees Christianity as a threat because the heart of Western culture is Christianity.

This is not my assessment. It is China’s. In 2011 the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences concluded, “The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics.”

This can help explain why the democratic movement in Hong Kong is largely led by the minority Christian population. It also explains why Xi Jinping has ramped up the persecution of Christian Churches throughout the mainland.

After nearly three months of protests in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Lam (no doubt at the direction of Xi) finally announced the formal withdrawal of the extradition bill. If they hoped that this would diffuse the pro-democracy movement, the communist leaders have been disappointed.

The protesters continue to rally and “Sing Halleluiah to the Lord.” They have also taken to waving American flags. I find this particularly interesting. Even though Hong Kong is a former British Colony, they are not waving the Union Jack. They seem to know instinctively that America is “the last best hope of earth.”

While Lam finally gave in to the protester’s demand that she formally withdraw the extradition law, there are still four more demands that the people of Hong Kong have put before her.

While they continue to seek democracy and justice, the protesters have added a slogan to their anthem. Last weekend as they marched with American flags they chanted, “Resist Beijing, Liberate Hong Kong! Pray for us, U.S., pray for us!”

The least we can do it to heed their call.