The hearing was held on the eve of the second anniversary of the passage in the House of Smith’s Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, under which the United States has sanctioned many key officials including Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong Chief Executive.
In addition to Lam, Smith singled out “Xi Jinping’s hatchet men: Chris Tang, the Secretary for Security and former head of the increasingly-repressive Hong Kong Police Force, and John Lee, the former Secretary of Security and current Chief Secretary.”
“But beyond the names of those who should be called to task, are those we must remember for their valiant defense of freedom,” Smith stated, highlighting democracy advocates such as Jimmy Lai, “the brave founder of Apple Daily, that beacon of free speech shut down by the government in June of this year,” who has been jailed for standing with those who spoke for freedom—just one of the over 150 individuals arrested under the National Security Law.
Among many issues, the hearing examined the complacency and complicity of international and US corporations in this repression of civil and political rights.
Witness Samuel Chu, the founder of the Hong Kong Democracy Council and the first foreign citizen to be targeted under the National Security Law, singled out several corporate enablers, including Cathay Pacific, the Mayer Brown law firm, and the accounting firms PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY, stating that, "What Beijing has done in Hong Kong requires the help and collaboration of private and international businesses. The National Security Law has proved to be the perfect weapon against civil society groups, pro-democracy politicians, and journalists. The threat to foreign businesses and employees is also clear. It is almost impossible to know whether an action - private or public - would run afoul of the law until too late.”Roy Hoi-hing Chan, the pastor of the Good Neighbor Church in London, who previously led a congregation in Hong Kong targeted by the Hong Kong Police, also noted that HSBC froze his bank accounts for providing humanitarian support to protestors.
“The one country, two systems model promised Hong Kong has surely been abandoned” Professor Michael C. Davis, an expert on Chinese law who is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center testified.
“Concerned governments will have to examine their international trade and exchange policies in a more comprehensive and multilateral way that advances the international human rights policies long reflected in the international human rights regime…Human rights should be at the core US foreign policy and the US needs a regulatory regime that incentivizes appropriate human rights behavior.” added Davis, who is also a former law professor at the University of Hong Kong,
“Hong Kong is on the front lines of China’s plan to reshape the global order. We have not in modern times seen the destruction of one of the freest and most prosperous cities in the world as a result of a takeover by a totalitarian state before this,”said Mark Clifford, the President of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong and a veteran journalist and author.
“Today it is Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai – tomorrow it could be…any company, or any person. Even those cheering the destruction of Next Digital and the manacling of Jimmy Lai know, deep down, that today in Hong Kong no one is safe from the casual, whimsical brutality of Chinese Communist power,” Clifford added.
Joanna Chiu, author of China Unbound and journalist for the Star Vancouver noted in her testimony that “Everyone I know in Hong Kong feels a sense of hopelessness. They worry that as authorities use increasingly convoluted legal methods to dismantle civil society piece by piece, one arrest after another, the world will stop understanding—and stop caring—about what is going on.”
According to Pastor Roy Hoi-hing Chan, “As of today, the religious freedom in Hong Kong is being suppressed severely. Quite a number of pastors who support human rights and freedoms are moving to the UK from Hong Kong due to National Security Law… [and] intimidations that they faced.”
Addressing US and international media, Smith urged them to help: “We cannot forget Hong Kong. The media in particular, I call upon you to lift up their voices. We cannot let the tyranny of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party stifle the flame of freedom that resides in the hearts of the people of Hong Kong.”
