From Project Syndicate, by Chris Patten – Much of the world remains focused on the gruesome developments in Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military continues to commit war crimes against a sovereign country he claims is an inalienable party of Russia. Meanwhile, the story in Hong Kong went from very bad to even worse.
In a wacky selection process disguised as democracy, the Chinese Communist Party recently named a former policeman, John Lee, as the chief executive of its puppet regime. John Lee is not just any old cop. He got the job because he oversaw the brutal crackdown on protests in Hong Kong in 2019 after two million residents protested the city government’s plan to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to China. continental. The proposed law change was necessary, a pro-Beijing adviser said, to make kidnappings by Chinese security services unnecessary.
The repression of John Lee replaced tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and tasers for dialogue. Even some of those providing medical assistance to protesters have been arrested and beaten. Such methods have put Hong Kong’s police force to shame, which can no longer be called the best in Asia. John Lee behaved as if he too willfully suppressed young protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 – an episode he and others like him are now trying to keep Hong Kong citizens from remembering at vigils and religious services.
I gained some knowledge of policing when I chaired the commission that reorganized the police service in Northern Ireland after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Lee’s approach to the 2019 protests fell far short of what good policing requires and what the Hong Kong public has come to expect. Unfortunately, it is precisely for this reason that a man who has no knowledge of the economic and social policies that have made Hong Kong so successful has been chosen to lead the city.
It was perhaps a sign of the worst to come that Lee’s appointment coincided with the May 11 arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong who is one of China’s most famous and admired clerics. from Asia. Cardinal Zen was detained with three other people who, like him, were trustees of a humanitarian relief fund that provided legal and financial assistance to more than 2,200 people arrested for participating in the 2019 protests. Although the fund was previously liquidated under pressure from police, the 90-year-old cardinal and his colleagues were arrested for allegedly collaborating with foreign forces in violation of China’s draconian national security law.
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Cardinal Zen has long been one of the bravest and most eloquent defenders of human rights in the Catholic Church anywhere, especially in China. The significance of his arrest was made clear by Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Myanmar, President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. “How can it be a crime to help defendants get legal defense and representation? » asked Cardinal Bo. Hong Kong was once one of the freest and most open cities in Asia. Today it has turned into a police state.
For many CCP officials, the real crime of Cardinal Zen is not only his regular defenses of religious freedom in China and, through his pastoral and intellectual courage, his potential threat to party totalitarianism, but also his criticism of secret Vatican agreements with Chinese leaders. These pacts claim to build bridges between the so-called underground church in China, which has always been in communion with the Vatican, and the self-proclaimed patriotic church controlled by the Beijing government.
Read also : Arrest of a cardinal: Beijing denounces the criticisms of the West
The alleged benefits of this agreement, supposed to improve the treatment of all Catholics in China (pastors and laity), are obviously so considerable that they have remained secret. There may be too much to report. But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask why, if the deal is so good, no one is allowed to know what it is.
In any case, the deal did nothing to alleviate the plight of Catholics or other Christians in China, where President Xi Jinping is clearly behind a nationwide crackdown on religious practice. Crucifixes have been removed, churches closed and bishops of underground churches sacked, a well-known bishop, James Su Zhimin, has spent years in prison and has not been seen for nearly 20 years.
In Jiangxi province and Yujiang, priests have been placed under house arrest or barred from pastoral duties, while children have been banned from attending church. CCP official in charge of Hong Kong cut his teeth cracking down on Christian churches in Wenzhou areain Zhejiang Province, considered a center of Christianity in China.
The Hong Kong church, which has around 400,000 members, is clearly told to be careful not to offend its new CCP masters. Last year, city police foiled a vigil for those killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and this year the Church canceled the event.
In response to all this, the Vatican simply issued a plaintive statement that it was following the arrest of Cardinal Zen. “with extreme care”. Is this really supposed to put Chinese leaders in their place?
Read also : Hong Kong: Cardinal Zen in court
While the Vatican’s desire to improve relations between Chinese Catholics, the Chinese government, and the Holy See is understandable, its position toward China is reminiscent of the Church’s behavior toward the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. J hope that this will not prove as detrimental to the integrity of the Church as these events have been.
Many Catholics will consider Cardinal Zen – who, as the University of Notre Dame has said, “has a conscience fueled by his faith” – as a more authentic representative of Catholic views on human rights than Vatican officials. And, even as they focus on Ukraine, liberal democracies must continue to speak out against China’s assault on freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong.
Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and former European commissioner for external affairs, is chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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