第三，看看其他大量案件。47 名前民选立法会议员和活动人士因举行初选而被捕，而初选本应是香港立法会选举；《立场新闻》编辑上个月被判煽动叛乱罪；2021 年，香港政??府打压新闻自由，关闭黎智英的《苹果日报》；在今天的香港，如果你穿了一件特定颜色的 T 恤或唱了一首特定的歌，你就会被逮捕和监禁——曼德尔森勋爵，这是什么样的法治？
Peter Mandelson’s intervention on China policy this week is profoundly wrong – and potentially very dangerous.
During a visit to Hong Kong in which he met government officials, top businessmen and bankers, and gave a speech at the University of Hong Kong, Lord Mandelson claimed that the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in the city are intact and he blamed the previous Conservative government for initiating a ‘boycott’ of Hong Kong and failing to sustain ‘proper channels of communication’ with Beijing. He said that the new Labour government wished to ‘recreate the strategic dialogue that Britain has had with China in the past’, after ‘many years of a very poor, deteriorating relationship’, adding that it was time for both countries to ‘stop throwing mud’ at each other. That sounds perilously close to the failed so-called ‘golden era’ of Sino-British relations pursued by David Cameron’s government – which of course was first started by Lord Mandelson.
One has to ask: what planet is Lord Mandelson living on?
Let’s take these points one by one, in reverse order.
First, the reason the relationship has deteriorated in recent years is because of the increasingly belligerent, bellicose, repressive and aggressive behaviour of the current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing, led by Xi Jinping.
Over the past five years particularly, Xi’s regime has been credibly accused of genocide against the Uyghurs by both the previous and current US administrations, several parliaments around the world including our own, and an independent tribunal chaired by the lawyer who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic, Sir Geoffrey Nice KC.
It has dismantled Hong Kong’s promised freedoms, human rights, the rule of law and autonomy, ripping up an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in the process.
It has intensified its repression of dissent and its crackdown on religion across China, including the barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.
Beijing’s atrocities in Tibet have continued, with revelations that at least a million Tibetan children have been coercively separated from their families into colonial boarding schools which prohibit them from learning Tibetan language, practising Tibetan Buddhism or living their Tibetan culture. But of course, Lord Mandelson has long shown a disregard for Tibet.
China’s aggression towards Taiwan has intensified and its threats to our national security through espionage, infiltration, influence operations and intimidation campaigns have increased.
And let’s not forget the CCP’s responsibility for unleashing upon the world the Covid-19 pandemic that destroyed hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods, through its irresponsible lies, cover-ups and repression of whistleblowers.
So there are good reasons relations deteriorated, and the blame lies in Beijing not in London. In Lord Mandelson’s view this is ‘throwing mud’, but it is really simply pointing out the facts.
Let’s turn to his second allegation: that the previous Conservative government was ‘in danger of operating a boycott of Hong Kong’. That is an absolute lie – and totally unnecessarily politicises what has always been an issue that has commanded broad cross-party support.
The last government did one thing for which it deserves great credit, and that was the introduction of the British National Overseas (BNO) scheme. This provided a pathway for potentially several million Hong Kongers to flee Hong Kong and build a new life in freedom in the United Kingdom.
That scheme was announced by Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab the day after the imposition by Beijing of a new, draconian National Security Law upon Hong Kong which destroyed the city’s freedoms, and it was championed and implemented by Priti Patel. Eligibility for the scheme was further extended, after much advocacy from the last Governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten and Lord Alton, both Patrons of the organisation I co-founded, Hong Kong Watch, and the last government should be applauded for the measures they took to offer Hong Kongers a future.
But don’t be in any doubt: that scheme drew enormous support from across all parties and both Houses of Parliament.
Moreover, the Labour Party in opposition were vocal in pushing the government at the time to go further and to be more robust on human rights in China. David Lammy, Catherine West, Stephen Kinnock, Lord Collins and plenty of other Labour Parliamentarians, frontbench and backbench, as well as friends from the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and other parties were allies in the effort to put some spine into the back of the last government. Lammy said he would call out the genocide of the Uyghurs if in government – one of the many promises the new government has u-turned on in the past two months.
Far from operating a ‘boycott’ of Hong Kong, the last government refused to implement any sanctions in response to Beijing’s breaches of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and instead sent at least two ministers – the then Trade Minister Lord (Dominic) Johnson and Foreign Office Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan – to the city. While they may have made platitudinal remarks about human rights, the focus of both visits was increasing trade. And the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly made a much-trumpeted – or at least much-tweeted – visit to Beijing for the same purpose.
Human rights in China and Hong Kong is not – and should not be – a party political matter. I have my criticisms of the previous government and my concerns about the current government’s approach. But I also have many friends on all sides who share the same view. Lord Mandelson trying to weaponise this issue as a stick with which to beat the Conservatives and a wedge to drive between the parties is wicked.
Finally, to the absurdity of his suggestion that the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong is still intact, I make simply three points.
First, read this article by Lord Sumption, who finally made the decision to quit sitting in Hong Kong’s courts. He says this: ‘Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly.’
Second, follow the case of my friend Jimmy Lai, the 76-year-old British citizen and media entrepreneur who has been in jail for more than three and a half years on multiple trumped-up charges including serving 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a peaceful vigil to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
As I wrote earlier this week, Mr Lai – a devout Catholic – has reportedly been denied Communion since last December, is held in solitary confinement for more than 23 hours a day, denied access to independent medical care and has very limited access to human contact or daylight. As his international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers – where the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer KC practised – said yesterday at the United Nations, Mr Lai’s continued arbitrary detention raises grave concerns.
Mr Lai is still on trial under the National Security Law, and could face life imprisonment. Several foreign nationals, including myself, have been named as collaborators with him in his trial. None of us – despite appeals from Parliamentarians in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) – have been called to give evidence. Mr Lai’s entire trial is a travesty of justice, especially as he was denied his first choice of legal counsel. What kind of rule of law or judicial independence is that?
And third, just look at the multitude of other cases. The fact that 47 former elected legislators and activists were arrested for holding a primary election to choose their candidates for what should have been Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections; the fact that the editors of Stand News were convicted of sedition last month; the crackdown on press freedom and closure of Mr Lai’s Apple Daily in 2021; and the fact that in Hong Kong today, if you wear a T-shirt of a particular colour or sing a particular song, you can be arrested and jailed – what kind of rule of law is that, Lord Mandelson?
In a fig-leaf to those who believe in human rights and democracy, the former British First Secretary of State, Trade Secretary and European Union Trade Secretary said he did think that the Hong Kong authorities should ‘tread lightly on people’s lives’. Tell that to Jimmy Lai. Tell that to the Stand News editors. Tell that to the hundreds of political prisoners in jail in Hong Kong today. Lord Mandelson, you can do better than that.
Few would dispute that we must talk to Beijing. Certainly I do not advocate disengagement. But the question for me is not whether to engage but how, and I am certain that we achieve nothing by kowtowing, diluting, denying, undermining or surrendering our values or by varnishing our differences. While they may not like it, the CCP respects us more if we stand up for what we believe in, rather than – as long-time American businessman James McGregor put it nearly a decade ago – ‘acting like a panting puppy’.
Other failed politicians have attempted to cosy up to Beijing. Think Vince Cable. Think George Osborne. But what makes Lord Mandelson’s intervention dangerous is that he has the ear of the new Prime Minister and is spoken of as a candidate to be either UK Ambassador to the United States or Chancellor of Oxford University. If he continues acting like a ‘panting puppy’ with regard to China, he should be disqualified from both positions and left to shout on the sidelines. His analysis of and partisanship in matters of China policy profoundly discredit him and endanger our national interest and values.
UK Peer Slams Tory Boycott of Hong Kong, Urges Thaw With China
(Bloomberg) -- UK Labour party veteran Peter Mandelson faulted the former Conservative government for failing to sustain “proper channels of communication” with China and not living up to Britain’s responsibilities in Hong Kong.
“It was in danger of operating a boycott of Hong Kong and the necessary communication that Britain needs to maintain with China,” the former British trade secretary said in an interview during his first trip to the Asian finance hub in more than four years. “And that’s what is going to change under the new government.”
The Labour peer is a close adviser to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who led the party to a landslide election win in July. Mandelson is also a co-founder of Global Counsel, a firm that’s become one of the most influential advisory groups in the UK and has been expanding its coverage of China.
Britain’s relations with China have turned sharply for the worse after what then Prime Minister David Cameron proclaimed was a “golden era” of relations with Beijing when he was in power back in 2015.
In 2021, the Conservatives blocked Huawei Technologies Co. from participating in Britain’s 5G network and more recently traded barbs with Chinese officials over allegations of spying.
Hong Kong
Mandelson, who was an influential figure in the last Labour government under Tony Blair and has been a peer in the House of Lords since 2008, met with Hong Kong officials, top businessmen and bankers during the visit. He said he was shocked that members of the local government were “cold shouldered” by ministers during trips to London earlier this year.
“That’s a serious infringement of Britain’s role and responsibility in Hong Kong,” he said.
The former British colony has faced criticism from Western governments over dismantling many of the freedoms that once set the city apart from the mainland. The US earlier this month issued an advisory that warned businesses operating in Hong Kong could fall afoul of new national security legislation — an announcement the city’s government rejected as “misleading and untruthful.”
While Mandelson said he believes the rule of law remains intact and the judiciary is still independent in Hong Kong, he urged the government to be “very careful” of moving in a direction criticized by its detractors.
“I think very strongly that the Hong Kong authorities have to tread lightly on people’s lives,” he said.
Re-engaging China
The former European trade commissioner said the UK government planned to re-engage with China after a full audit of the bilateral ties, including by re-establishing formal meetings between officials. Starmer has yet to articulate a formal strategy toward the world’s second-largest economy since taking power.
During a phone call seen as laying the ground for a reset between the two countries’ governments, Starmer told Chinese President Xi Jinping last month he was hopeful for “frank, open and honest” talks on areas of disagreement including on Hong Kong. The prime minister additionally referenced Russia’s war in Ukraine and human rights as issues the UK wants to address with China.
The new Labour administration is also crafting an economic agenda to lay out “strategies” for key sectors including electric vehicles. That may provide insight into the country’s position on imports of Chinese EVs, an industry the European Union and the US are targeting with tariffs.
The British government “wants to, in time, recreate the strategic dialogs that Britain has had with China in the past,” Mandelson said. Some of such forums have been halted in recent years, including the UK-China Economic and Finance Dialogue which hasn’t taken place since 2019.
Mandelson also had a word of caution for companies at risk of getting caught in the crosshairs of rising tensions.
“You can operate your business in both the American and Chinese economies, but inevitably you’ve got to be mindful of any downside risks of doing so,” he said. “At the end of the day, it behooves governments of all countries to allow businesses to do business.”
Wrong Turn
The UK’s re-engagement with China would be conditional on Beijing’s condemnation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to Mandelson. Responding to a question, he agreed that was a minimum requirement for improving the ties and criticized China’s “wrong turning” over its alignment with Russia.
“It hangs like a cloud, frankly, over China’s relationship with the whole of Europe,” he said. “We would want to see China taking a more responsible approach to that conflict.”
China has cultivated a partnership with the Kremlin despite the 2022 invasion, seeking to portray itself as a neutral actor that can help end the war.
Beijing should use its influence and “premier role” in the international system to bring about a withdrawal by Russia from Ukraine and a settlement between the two countries, Mandelson said.
“China cannot complain on the one hand of threats to its territorial integrity and, in the next moment, stand stand idly by whilst Russia changes Ukraine’s borders by force,” he said. “There is a double standard there and hypocrisy, which does not serve China well.”
