The English language hosts many proverbs, often graphic. Whereas one cautions that “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones”, another deprecates “the pot calling the kettle black”. Anyone reading the European Union’s 2020 Hong Kong report, released on March 11, which blasts the city’s National Security Law (NSL), and hearing the associated ramblings of its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, about its electoral reform proposals, will be reminded of both. They are hypocrisy incarnate, which should surprise nobody, given the EU’s democratic deficit and its contempt for the will of its own people.
If any politician understands the EU properly, it is Nigel Farage, who broke the mold of British politics. Having espoused Euroscepticism in the 1990’s, he convinced the British people that their interests would be best served by leaving the EU, not least because of its brazen disregard of what they wanted. While in the European Parliament, he tirelessly highlighted the EU’s hypocrisy, as well its disregard of democratic processes. After he led the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) to victory in the UK’s European Parliament elections in 2014, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, legislated for the UK to have an “in/out” referendum on June 23, 2016, with the rest, as they say, being history.
In his farewell address to the European Parliament, on January 29, 2020, Farage called the EU “a bad project”, explaining “It isn’t just undemocratic, it’s anti-democratic”. He was, of course, absolutely right, and, whenever the people of Europe have attempted to have their voices heard on the issues which affect their lives, the EU, whose institutions are remote, strong on bureaucracy and weak on accountability, has shown its contempt. Even after the British people, in their largest ever vote on any issue, had voted to leave the EU, its adherents in the UK were mobilized to seek a second referendum, or “people’s vote”, in the hope that the original decision could be reversed, which is a long-standing EU tactic.
One of the EU’s proxies was, unsurprisingly, its former External Affairs Commissioner, Chris Patten, who did his best to frustrate “Brexit”. Although his countrymen had voted by 17,410,742 votes (51.89 per cent) to 16,141,241 (48.11 per cent) to reclaim their sovereignty, Patten set about trying to block their decision. When the British government, to honor the vote, brought forward its European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in 2018, Patten used his position as an unelected member of the House of Lords to try to upset its progress. He was active in inflicting successive defeats upon his own government, and even removed the UK’s proposed EU exit date from the bill. While Patten rejoices in preaching democracy for Hong Kong, he had no qualms over trying to thwart it at home, and, on January 7, 2019, in true EU fashion, he called for a second referendum. But this was yet another miscalculation on his part, because, as Farage told the EU Parliament, “the British are too big to bully, thank goodness”.
In seeking a second referendum, Patten was simply following the established EU practice, when confronted with a vote it does not like. Instead of accepting democratic votes and moving on, the EU simply tells the voters to vote again, until they get it “right”. In 1992, for example, when the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union and its single currency, was proposed, 50.7 per cent of Danish voters rejected it, on a turnout of 83.1 per cent. As the Danish people had spoken, that should have been the end of the story, but it was not. Instead, after a cocktail of promises and threats, Denmark was told to vote again, and the EU finally got its way.
The EU’s pronouncements on Hong Kong are not only superficial, but shoddy, ill-researched and biased. It has sacrificed objectivity on the altar of Sinophobia, and brought yet more discredit upon itself. Until such time as (Josep) Borrell gets some reliable advisers and understands the city, he would be well advised to remember what they say about people who live in glass houses
Although, in 2008, the Irish people voted, by a majority of 53 per cent, to reject the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, designed to streamline its institutions, that was only the beginning. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country held the EU’s rotating presidency, promptly announced that “the Irish will have to vote again”. According to the Guardian (December 13, 2008), one EU official described the Irish “as ‘ungrateful bastards’, on the basis that Ireland has received lots of handouts from the EU and thus should be more obedient to its paymaster”. Once, however, the thumbscrews were turned and the sweeteners dispensed, the voters fell into line in a second referendum, and the EU got what it wanted.
However, the EU cannot always arrange re-runs, and then its tactics change. In 2005, when it produced its proposals for a “Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe”, or TCE, many Europeans recoiled in horror, realizing it was a blueprint for a superstate. This was the last thing they wanted, and the TCE was rejected in referenda by the people of both France and the Netherlands. Once the EU realized it could not change their minds, its solution was ingenious, if corrupt. It simply re-cooked the TCE, and gave it a new name, the Lisbon Treaty, upon which neither the people of France nor the Netherlands were allowed to vote, and which was finally adopted at the governmental level, albeit four years late, in 2009.
With a shocking record like this, which made the British and many others want to leave the bloc, it beggars belief that the EU should now have sought to lecture China on its proposals for democratic change in Hong Kong, with Borrell calling them “regressive”. It even claimed that the NSL, which has saved Hong Kong from death and destruction, is being used to “erode fundamental freedoms”, and called for an end to “the persecution of those who promote democratic values”. Although the exact opposite is true, the EU even had the effrontery to accuse China of wanting to dismantle the “one country, two systems principle, in violation of its international commitments and the Hong Kong Basic Law”. Its comments show a lamentable ignorance of the actual situation in the city, although they were undoubtedly the red meat for which its assorted China bashers, Dracula-like, always crave.
It is precisely because Hong Kong’s current electoral arrangements have failed so abysmally, that China is having to reform them. Had it not acted, things would have continued to deteriorate, placing “one country, two systems” in real peril. Although, under the Basic Law, Hong Kong is “an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China”, coming “directly under the Central People’s Government”, its unique arrangements for the city’s success have been repeatedly threatened, sometimes by legislators, sometimes by violence, sometimes by secessionists, and sometimes by hostile forces elsewhere.When an armed insurrection erupted in 2019, many opposition legislators expressed sympathy, and did everything possible to thwart the government as it tried to restore law and order. Instead of condemning the protest movement and its armed wing, and egged on by the likes of Patten, they focused upon denouncing the police force, even though it had saved the city, and tried to block its funding.
Whereas, moreover, some legislators turned their oath-taking ceremony into a farce, indulging in the types of profanities and stunts which the EU itself would never tolerate, others caused violent disturbances in the debating chamber, leaving staff injured. While some legislators assaulted successive chief executives when they came to address the Legislative Council, others threw noxious substances and rotting plants about in the chamber. Instead of diligently working for the people’s welfare, even the lawyers among them sought to prevent the progress of legislation for months on end, for base purposes of their own. There were even some who were prepared to urge foreign powers to pass laws that would undermine Hong Kong’s trading position, imperiling jobs, and harm local and foreign officials, which, in many jurisdictions, is prosecutable as misconduct in public office, if not treason. Even though Hong Kong has a clear obligation under the Basic Law to the rest of the country to enact National Security Laws (Art.23), this was blocked by opposition parties, leaving the city at grave risk once the insurgency started, and the central government had to act.
Although China, when it enacted the Basic Law, placed great faith in Hong Kong, it has been repeatedly let down. Instead of taking full advantage of the “one country, two systems” policy, some people have used it to try to damage China and to undermine its interests abroad. Even when the central government sought to introduce universal suffrage for the election of the Chief Executive in 2017, this was voted down as some legislators felt it did not go far enough. Borrell appears oblivious to all this, just as he shows no appreciation of how saboteurs infiltrated the city’s institutions, hoping to cause political paralysis and provoke a confrontation with Beijing. Quite clearly, this situation is intolerable, and things will get far worse if resolute action is not taken to ensure that the city’s public positions are no longer held by people who want to sow discord, prevent good governance, and sabotage “one country, two systems”.
As Borrell should have known, the NSL was vital not only to protect Hong Kong from destruction, but also to safeguard the country as a whole. The fanatics who masterminded the riots were committed to mutual destruction, and would willingly have destroyed Hong Kong in order to damage China. After months of orchestrated violence on the streets, which left many people injured, caused huge damage to property, and trashed social norms, the NSL has restored peace and stability, and helped the authorities to bring those responsible to account. Borrell, moreover, wholly failed to explain why Hong Kong, unlike every EU State, should be denied the national security laws it needs to protect itself from subversive activities and terrorism. Indeed, although he claimed that the national security law erodes freedoms, if he had actually read it he would have known that quite the contrary, it protects the rights of criminal suspects. Not only does the new law incorporate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into its application (Art.4), but it specifically states that the presumption of innocence, and associated fair trial rights, “shall be protected” (Art.5).
Since Borrell referenced the Basic Law, he might at least have taken the trouble to read it. Had he done so, he would have known that Hong Kong has a common law legal system (Art.8), that decisions on prosecutions are taken independently by the Department of Justice (Art.63), and that cases are adjudicated upon by professional judges “free from any interference” (Art.85). If people, whatever their political persuasion, are suspected, on reasonable grounds, of having committed an offense, they must expect to be prosecuted, even if they have allies in the EU, as everybody in Hong Kong is equal before the law. They will, moreover, only be convicted if the prosecution has proved its case against them beyond a reasonable doubt. His call, therefore, for the “immediate release” of people accused of subversive activity was not only misguided, but also contemptuous of the basic principles of criminal justice, as practiced in both Hong Kong and the EU. If Borrell and his henchmen spent more time familiarizing themselves with the situation on the ground, and less time indulging in crude politicking, he would appreciate that the rule of law in Hong Kong is as vibrant as ever.
The EU’s pronouncements on Hong Kong are not only superficial, but shoddy, ill-researched and biased. It has sacrificed objectivity on the altar of Sinophobia, and brought yet more discredit upon itself. Until such time as Borrell gets some reliable advisers and understands the city, he would be well advised to remember what they say about people who live in glass houses.
The author is a senior counsel, law professor and criminal justice analyst, and was previously the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
