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On August 14, Victor Mallet, editor-in-chief of Financial Times Asia, speaks at the Foreign Correspondents Club Luncheon in Hong Kong.
Photo:
paul yeung / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Hong Kong last week refused to renew the work visa of Financial Times Asia editor Victor Mallet and gave him seven days to leave the territory. This unprecedented expulsion is the latest attack on civil liberties and the rule of law in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but with an autonomy of 50 years.
The government will not say why it expelled Mr. Mallet, but it seems to be part of the crackdown on young politicians who embrace independence or self-determination. On July 17, the government proposed to use an organized anti-crime law to ban the Hong Kong National Party, a tiny group calling for China's independence. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, chaired by Mr. Mallet, invited the party's founder to speak.
This triggered a crisis. Representatives of the Chinese Foreign Ministry asked the club to cancel the protest, and the Hong Kong government said: "providing a public forum for a speaker to openly defend independence completely disregards Hong Kong's constitutional obligation to defending national sovereignty, it is totally unacceptable and deeply regrettable. "
The FCC continued its speech, which was legal, and Mr Mallet introduced the speaker. Beijing-owned newspapers have leaked vitriol on the club, and former Hong Kong CEO Leung Chun-ying has called for the eviction of the FCC from its rented premises in a building owned by the government. The government then banned the National Party as a threat to national security.
Meanwhile, pro-Beijing personalities in Hong Kong are calling for new laws against subversion. The government last tried to pass such laws in 2003, when more than half a million protesters took to the streets. Local officials seem reluctant to resume this battle. But in January, a member of the election staff disqualified a candidate for Demosisto, a large opposition party calling for self-determination but not for independence.
The expulsion of Mr. Mallet is also an attack on the Hong Kong tradition as a redoubt of the free press in Asia. Journalists have been using Hong Kong for decades as a base to cover China, convinced they can do it freely. China no longer bars a journalist from offering a public forum to a dissident.
The case shows that Chinese officials at the Beijing Liaison Office call in Hong Kong. President Xi Jinping's authoritarian repression extends from the continent to where China can dominate or exert influence. This trend is one of the reasons why the world opinion builds against China a threat to democracy and freedom.
