China’s agenda for Asia and beyond on display in the crushing of freedom in Hong Kong

On Monday, the Chinese Communist Party announced that it would deny Hong Kong universal suffrage in its 2007 election for chief executive. Under the Party’s edict Hong Kong will also be denied the opportunity to hold free elections for more than half the seats in its Legislative Council in 2008.

Both decisions flagrantly violate Hong Kong’s Basic Law, legislation arising from and codifying a solemn international undertaking the PRC gave Great Britain in 1984 when the latter agreed to turn over its last colony to Chinese control. The hostility they demonstrate for democracy and the indifference they suggest for British, U.S. or other international support for its survival on territory claimed by China is an ominous warning of still worse to come at the PRC’s hands in the region, and possibly elsewhere.

It is, consequently, imperative that the Bush Administration respond in a clear and resolute way to Beijing’s latest bid to crush democracy in Hong Kong. After all, if there are no costs to the PRC associated with its dismantling of the Basic Law, it is predictable that China will be emboldened to act ever-more aggressively towards the other Chinese democratic experiment, Taiwan.

For its part, Congress should review the Hong Kong Policy Act to ensure that China incurs appreciable penalties for undermining Hong Kong’s democratic and capitalist principles. It should also encourage the executive branch to initiate closer economic and security relations with Taiwan, a key ally in the region, now under greater threat than ever from the mainland.

These were among the points made in prescient testimony last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Roger W. Robinson, Jr., the Chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and that panel’s Vice Chairman, Richard D’Amato. As the following excerpts make clear, the congressionally mandated, bipartisan Commission’s leaders warned that Beijing’s behavior towards Hong Kong is just one indication of the serious problems we are likely to confront from the People’s Republic in the years ahead. Their full testimony is available on the Center for Security Policy’s web site (www.CenterforSecurityPolicy.org/) and anticipates the analysis and findings of the Commission’s next, important report expected to be issued in May.