On 30 June, responding to the demonstrations and rioting that had struck Hong Kong, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) passed a new national security law for the territory. This law bans political agitation calling for independence for Hong Kong and any collusion with a foreign country or external elements endangering national security.
Last year’s demonstrations were primarily organised by capitalist interests, supported by pro-imperialist forces, initially to oppose a new extradition law with mainland China. Although the Hong Kong government withdrew the law in response to the protests, the demonstrations escalated, with calls for independence and attacks on symbols of the Chinese Communist Party. Sections of the demonstrators displayed British and US flags and called for either Britain or Trump to ‘save’ Hong Kong, alongside chauvinist slurs against mainland Chinese people. (See FRFI 272 October/November 2019, ‘Hong Kong’s misdirected protests’).
The response of British imperialism to the PRC’s actions was contrived outrage expressed with characteristic arrogance. Boris Johnson condemned the law for supposedly breaking the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which laid the grounds for Britain quitting Hong Kong in 1997; the territory had been occupied by Britain since 1841. Johnson hypocritically declared: ‘It violates Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and threatens the freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration’. ‘Freedoms and rights’ were alien for Hong Kong under British colonial rule with no local elected representatives and repression for campaigners for the reunification of Hong Kong and the PRC. The Royal Hong Kong Police was a paramilitary colonial force, which enforced imperialist rule by terror.
The British government then announced, in a blatant attempt to destabilise Hong Kong society, that nearly three million Hong Kong citizens would be eligible to apply for residency in Britain. This includes the 350,000 who hold British National Overseas (BNO) passports issued before the 1997 handover and over 2.5 million who are eligible to apply for a BNO passport. There would be no income test for these immigrants and after five years they would be able to apply for settled status and then citizenship. A stark contrast to the dehumanising racist regime that usually faces migrants and refugees who manage to enter Britain.
Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy supported the Conservative government’s proposals, then went further, calling on the government to force the UN to investigate police brutality in Hong Kong. She called on the government to re-examine its whole commercial relationship with China.
In response to these provocations the Chinese Ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, accused Britain of gross interference in Hong Kong affairs stating, ‘Some of the politicians in the UK still have this very strong colonial mindset. They fail to recognise that Hong Kong is no longer under the British colonial rule!’
The British government’s artificial outrage over China stamping down on violent protests in Hong Kong is fuelled by its need to ally its economic interests ever more closely with those of US imperialism which is engaged in an escalating trade war with China. This alignment was drawn closer with the 14 July decision to bar the Chinese company Huawei from Britain’s 5G telecommunications network. It was only in January that Johnson had pushed through parliament the decision that Huawei could participate in the development of the 5G network. This has now been reversed mainly because of pressure from the US, pressure which includes sanctions against Huawei, preventing it buying US software and technology.
Labour’s response has been to criticise the government from the right, accusing it of not taking ‘National Security’ seriously enough and not barring Huawei earlier. Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy, Chi Onwurah, declared, ‘It has been clear for some time that there are serious questions over whether Huawei should be allowed to control large sections of our country’s telecoms network – yet the government refused to face reality…Their approach to our 5G capability, Huawei and national security has been incomprehensibly negligent.’
For the Labour Party it is natural to want to strengthen and defend the ‘national security’ of the British imperialist state. It sees no contradiction in simultaneously condemning the PRC for defending its own national security and territorial integrity against attempts by imperialism to drive a wedge between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.
Bob Shepherd
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 277 August/September 2020
