Hong Kong crisis with China is wake-up call to world – Natalie Bennett

Doctors in hospital, trying, without adequate support from their managers, to ensure patients are treated with respect, dignity and receiving appropriate care.

A young journalist who now sees the world very differently after being exposed to the reality of the Hong Kong streets.

These were some of the people from whom the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong heard last week, during the oral testimony phase of our inquiry into allegations of mistreatment of health workers, journalists and humanitarian symbols in Hong Kong.

Those testifying were among the almost 1,000 people who presented written and electronic evidence to the Group. We are examining the events of last year, but very similar events were continuing on the streets of Hong Kong as the inquiry proceeded.

When the hearings were organised, we had no idea that they would coincide with momentous events in Hong Kong, what’s being widely described as the effective end of “one country two systems” agreed in 1997 and supposed to last until at least 2047, with the People’s National Congress imposing a security law on Hong Kong that it has long been resisting.

From the British perspective, it is perhaps London’s reaction that best illustrates just how dramatic an event this is.

A government that has been a fervent proponent of the immigration hostile environment announced that the estimated 2.9 million Hong Kong citizens holding or eligible for a British National (overseas) passport could be allowed to settle in the UK.

That is a politically huge step, and acknowledgement of colonial era debts that those seeking reparation for much of the disastrous continuing impact of empire will see as a potential start of something much bigger.

What happens next in Hong Kong should be decided by the people of Hong Kong, under the internationally recognised principle of self-determination.

What happens internationally is up to all the world’s nations and peoples, and what should happen is a defence of international law.

But it is particularly up to London. China signed with the UK a treaty when the colonial power handed over the territory and its people to Beijing’s control, the Joint Declaration, which supposedly guaranteed rights and freedoms for the people of Hong Kong.

That leaves the UK with a special responsibility, which it has acknowledged with words. But more is needed – actions.

And beyond that, there is a need – you might consider this article a call – for all who work to defend human rights anywhere in the world to step up and step into the Hong Kong situation.

I work broadly across the world on international issues, with a particular focus on areas in which UK policy could make a real difference.

That means top of my list has always been the world’s second-worst human rights-abusing regime – Saudi Arabia. The UK sells massive quantities of arms – some used in indefensible acts in Yemen, and offers significant international diplomatic support to the regime.

I’ve also long done what I can to address the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Western resource companies have a significant role in the continuing conflict and hideous abuse of women, including almost ubiquitous sexual violence.

And I’ve tried where I could to highlight the situation in Mauritania, the only country in the world where in real terms slavery has never been abolished.

None of us can work on every human rights issue around the world. There are sadly far too many for that.

But the situation facing the people of Hong Kong is desperate and urgent, and needs worldwide attention when many are understandably weighed down by the enormous local impacts of Covid-19.

However this is a chance to acknowledge that defending human rights does have to be universal, and global, in its scope – and that we should all reflect on the words of German pastor Martin Niemoller.

That’s why the APPG inquiry chose to focus on the rights and protection of international humanitarian workers and symbols, and the press. Refusal to protect those rights anywhere globally endangers principles that are central to a civilised, human rights-respecting, international order.

Natalie Bennett is a Green Party peer and co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. 
She lives in Sheffield.

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