The United States has a habit of viewing China’s actions and statements as bad or evil, while similar actions or statements by the “free world” are good and right. No more egregious example of this phenomenon exists than that of the US labeling China’s nonlethal reaction to terrorism in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region as a “genocide”, then insisting that Israel’s killing of tens of thousands of Gazans in response to its own experience of terrorism is not genocide.
A more subtle parallel can be made in the case of the Hong Kong 47 conspirators recently tried in the “35-plus” subversion case. To the Western world, this is an open-and-shut case of jailing people for exercising their freedoms — “snuffing out the flame of freedom in Hong Kong”, as the British newspaper The Economist put it.
However, there is a prominent case in the US with similar characteristics. Not all US citizens would regard it as a just prosecution — only about half would — while virtually all Americans would see the jailing of the “35-plus” conspirators as Beijing’s “crushing of freedom” in Hong Kong.
The context and details are complex in both the Hong Kong and US cases.
In the case of “Hong Kong 47”, their plan, as delineated in an article in Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s newspaper, the Apple Daily, by their leader, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a former Hong Kong University associate law professor, was to hold an unofficial primary election to select candidates to solidify behind in the subsequent official Legislative Council election. The intent was to win a majority of at least 35 LegCo seats in the official election. Then, the plan went, they would indiscriminately veto all budgets presented by the chief executive to the legislature, with the explicit aim to bring down the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and foment chaos.
A case in the US has striking similarities. It is likely to be put on hold due to Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency, the central target of the prosecution. But prior to that, it was a serious case indeed. It was a genuine danger to Trump and his co-defendants, who could be exposed to sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
Understanding this case requires knowledge of the strange way the US elects presidents. The president is not elected by a majority of the popular vote. The “founding fathers” who wrote the US Constitution did not trust the popular vote, so they interceded a small group of “electors” who would be chosen by each state to be the ones to elect the president.
When it comes to Hong Kong, however, a similar case immediately brings to Western media headlines the phrase “snuffing out the flame of freedom”. This is another example of the US and the West viewing China as bad or evil for acts similar to those of the US, for which the US is seen as valiant
As this system evolved, two main political parties arose in the US: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. (Parties were not anticipated at the time of writing the Constitution.) Before the election, each party in each state chooses a slate of electors to vote for the presidency. When the popular vote in the state is counted, the electors for the winning party become the slate to cast their votes. They virtually always vote for the candidate who won the popular vote. The electors then send certificates of their vote to the president of the Senate, who is also the US vice-president. In the case of the alleged Trump conspiracy, the person who played that role on Jan 6, 2021, was Mike Pence.
Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, to get around the electors’ certification of the vote in states that Trump lost, recruited a slate of so-called “fake-electors” as a substitute for the slate of electors that were duly constituted by seven “swing” states, the states with close votes that would determine the result of the election. Unlike Hong Kong’s “35-plus” scheme, published in the Apple Daily, the fake elector scheme was carried out mostly in secret. Trump and his minions pressured Mike Pence to reject the certifications by the approved electors and allow the fake electors’ certifications instead. Pence honorably refused.
In August 2023, the Superior Court of Fulton County in the US state of Georgia indicted 19 defendants in this scheme, including Trump. The indictment alleged that they “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump”. The indictment charged that the defendants “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities”.
The charges were made under Georgia’s RICO, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which has been part of US federal and state law since 1970. The purpose of the law is to jail leaders of criminal organizations like the Mafia who indulge in illegal activities but whose bosses were difficult to bring to justice.
The act has been criticized for its broadness, as many national security laws, not least those recently created in Hong Kong, have been criticized. However, RICO played a prominent role in breaking up racketeering organizations. The Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, believed it applied to the Trump group’s fake elector scheme and associated crimes.
Approximately half of the citizens of the US believe that Trump and his associates are guilty of such crimes and should be prosecuted. They are grateful that the US has a robust court system that can prosecute even former presidents. The other half, who tend to be less well-informed, believe that Trump is being prosecuted because there is a vendetta against him.
When it comes to Hong Kong, however, a similar case immediately brings to Western media headlines the phrase “snuffing out the flame of freedom”. This is another example of the US and the West viewing China as bad or evil for acts similar to those of the US, for which the US is seen as valiant.
The author is an adjunct professor in the Division of Environment and Sustainability at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
