Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Tragedy Is Not an Isolated Event

This is a translation of the original 香港的蘋果慘劇不會是孤立事件 by Chao Chun-shuo (趙君朔), a columnist. Originally published by Voice Tank. Translation by Jessica Wu.

On June 17, two top-level executives of Next Media Ltd., the corporate parent of the newspaper Apple Daily, were suspected of violating Hong Kong’s National Security Law. On June 24, after warnings from John Lee Ka-chiu (李家超), the former Chief Secretary of the Security Bureau to freeze all access to funds, Apple Daily announced it would end operations and stop publishing immediately. On June 25, Lee, the man most responsible for beheading Apple Daily, was appointed Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary for Administration, the first from a police background.

On June 27, Fung Wai-kwong, the former head of Apple Daily’s English edition, was arrested by the police at the airport. On the same day, pro-democracy Stand News announced it was deleting its op-eds, blog posts and syndicated articles, and will only repost them with permission from authors. Six board members of Stand News resigned, leaving only two members.

The complete silencing of Apple Daily happened almost overnight. What will happen to the Apple Daily executives’ criminal charges? What will happen to Apple Daily’s assets? And will other pro-democracy, anti-Beijing news media face the same treatment?

All-out confrontation with the West 

Why did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conduct a lightning-fast, brutal crackdown on the press, just before celebrating its 100th Anniversary on July 1? Clearly, it’s to create a chilling effect, and to send a clear message to the G7 Summit: “we do not care that your statement mentions human rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and we will go to the extremes to prove that pressures from foreign powers on the CCP, which has led the rise of China, are useless.”

As the international media celebrated the new multilateral approach towards China that the United States had put together, Beijing quickly crashed that optimism with concrete action. What is more ironic is that most critics did not provide in-depth analyses of what has happened to Hong Kong. At most, they have expressed a light sigh over what has been done to Apple Daily. But it is not only critics who gave a superficial response; another muted response came from none other than US President Joe Biden.

It was not until the day that Apple Daily closed up shop for sure that the White House provided a statement that said it was “a sad day.” The statement also simply asked Beijing to cease its crackdown on the freedom of the press. This kind of gesture, made shortly after meeting with the leaders of the world’s strongest countries to declare “America is back” and to defend human rights and democratic values, is a tacit acceptance of Beijing’s brutality while admitting the US won’t take any real action. This will call into doubt the Biden Administration’s resolve to back up its word on international affairs.

And because of this, the senators who co-authored the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, Republican Pat Toomey and his Democratic colleague Chris Van Hollen, responded to the White House’s statement the next day. They demanded the Biden Administration impose sanctions on individuals and bodies responsible for the crackdown on press freedom. But in the face of Beijing’s suppression of Hong Kong, the Biden Administration has never done anything other than deliver empty statements that “express concern” or “stand with the people of Hong Kong.” This time doesn’t seem any different.

The CCP’s four motives 

The CCP’s suppression will have far-reaching consequences. First, more Hong Kongers will lose their jobs or face judicial persecution if they stand in the way of the CCP’s agenda. The former Secretary of Security and career police officer John Lee Ka-chiu ascending to the Secretary of Administration is a sign that suppression will continue.

Second, the US and other foreign corporations will have a harder time doing business in Hong Kong. The CCP made Apple Daily an example of what happens when a private business steps on Beijing’s toes: Beijing can ignore Hong Kong’s rule of law as promised in the One Country Two Systems framework, and brutally cut off the finances of any private enterprise to shut it down for good.

Maybe most companies are thinking it’s not hard to remain quiet on politics, but the problem is that if even normal communication for businesses contains political risk, then investing large amounts of capital in Hong Kong becomes much riskier. Dr. Law Ka-chung, a renowned financial analyst with the nickname “Doomsday Doctor,” said when there is no freedom of speech, “fraud goes unnoticed and stock information is hidden, which makes Hong Kong a dead city where finance and commerce cannot take place.”

Third, as foreign companies quietly leave Hong Kong, the CCP will try to artificially prop up the economy and stock market by pushing more mainland businesses to move or list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. If this is successful, Beijing may even claim that Hong Kong’s economy is doing even better after political crackdowns, and use that claim to challenge the US’s values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.

Fourth, if the United States sits back while Beijing carries out its suppression of Hong Kong, the CCP may very well take the hint and escalate its aggression towards Taiwan. The CCP will at the very least attempt to create voices of division and sow chaos within Taiwan. The opposition party has already exploited the coronavirus outbreak this summer to incite fear and anger within Taiwan and call for greater reliance on China. It is also possible that direct military provocations or attacks toward outer islands such as Dongsha will take place. Rira Momma, the Director of Geography Research at Japan’s Minister of Defense Research Institute, pointed to the possibility of this happening.

Taiwan is next

Taiwan will be the next target of the CCP. Nakayama Yasuhide, Japan’s Vice Minister for Defense, had already pointed this out last December. He called for the Biden Administration to take a harder stance for Taiwan. Unfortunately, up to now, aside from a handful of actions on the practical level, the Biden Administration’s national security team has not provided any far-reaching new ideas for its policy on Taiwan. The half-day visit by three senators to announce donating 750,000 doses of vaccines to Taiwan was certainly welcomed, but it was only a one-time gesture. It does not represent a significant adjustment in policy.

Hong Kong’s devastating situation cannot wait. So the deeper problem is, why did Xi Jinping suffocate an international finance center and take another step in eroding the already deteriorating international image of the CCP just to provoke the international community? Jude Blanchette, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, provided some thoughts in his latest Foreign Affairs article “Xi’s Gamble: The Race to Consolidate Power and Stave Off Disaster.”

He thinks that after Xi took his position, in order to cope with the new changes and challenges in the midst of restructuring the party and collectively holding power, overly expanded the concept of national security. Since 2014, Xi had pushed the idea of “Overall National Security,” as well as declaring, in a speech in April of the same year, that China is in a precarious domestic and international situation unrivaled in history. In Blanchette’s view, to speak in such a way is an exaggeration, but Xi’s objective is to remind the entire party: this is a new age full of risks and uncertainties.

Xi mixes internal power parities with external security matters, creating a whole security viewpoint that fans the fuel for fear and hysteria. Departments within the party that are responsible for low-risk tasks talk of “terrorism,” “revolution,” and the “infiltration of Christianity.”

This is why, in the face of a new American administration that has already toned down its rhetoric and has done little more than stuff a list of grievances into a catch-all bucket that is the G7 joint statement, Xi wanted to show that he wasn’t afraid of being called out by the West by silencing a bellwether media company with lightning speed, disregarding any legal procedure and the possibility of international backlash and effect to the economy.

In the short term, the countless brainwashed wolf warrior nationalistic Chinese people and officials will only become more in awe of Xi Jinping. But these people can’t help but rely on the brutal approach of the iron fist. No wonder Xi is known as the “Ultimate Accelerator” on the internet — to accelerate the collapse of the CCP, as contrasted with the “Ultimate Accelerator” of reform, Deng Xiaoping.

Today’s Hong Kong is the canary in the mine, detecting the oncoming danger. What comes next is that the international order, due to serious US-Sino antagonism, may escalate anytime. The US foreign policy under Biden has so far been mostly declarative, nothing more than theater: it repeats buzzwords like multilateralism, global cooperation, and democracy and human rights like a broken record, but it has no real ability to deal with real problems. Just look at the failed states of Myanmar and Hong Kong.

In the face of a dictator, Biden does the same: repeat the same lofty slogans a few times, and then compromise right away. This is how President Biden let Russian leader Putin claim he does not persecute human rights activists and deny any cyberattacks on the US in front of the press, as well as lifted the sanctions on the North European Gas Pipeline, which gave Putin a free bargaining chip to threaten Western Europe with energy controls. With Iran’s nuclear negotiations, the US also lifted sanctions after Iran refused to concede an inch, and even put a hawk as the next president to continue pressuring the US for more concessions. Finally, President Biden has continued to pull out of Afghanistan to leave its people in the hands of a weak government and possible further violence.

This kind of lip service, non-practical diplomatic policy only encourages dictators to continue on their current path, especially for someone like Xi, who takes a fully insecure and obsessive stance. What has, and is happening, in Hong Kong is by no means an isolated example as it could be a precursor to a larger regional crisis.