Hong Kong

The bill’s future remains uncertain, but no amendments can change the ugly reality of shipping anyone off to Beijing’s incommunicado torture chambers, its denial of competent legal defenders, and its unfair trials.

The Five Questions Series is a forum for scholars, government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign policy practitioners to provide timely analysis of new developments related to the advancement of women and girls worldwide. In this interview Denise Ho, a Hong Kong-based artist and pro-democracy and LGBTQ rights activist, explains why the proposed extradition bill has triggered protests in Hong Kong.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering June 16 to June 23, was compiled with support from Lucia Petty and Rebecca Turkington.

I was struck by a recent headline in the South China Morning Post heralding Xi Jinping’s political gains at home from his diplomacy abroad. If the assessment is correct, it would suggest that a series of foreign policy travails has only served to heighten Xi’s popularity; by almost any objective calculation, it has been a challenging summer for Xi and his foreign policy team. First, and most significantly, in July, a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China and for the Philippines in the latter’s case regarding territorial claims in the South China Sea. Certainly China’s pre-established non-compliance with the ruling limits the efficacy of the decision. Nonetheless, as legal scholar Tara Davenport argues, the award has a number of additional important ramifications, including: pushing China to clarify its policies, providing private actors such as oil companies with a legal decision on which to base their investment decisions, and serving as a “focal point” that can be used by other claimants to pressure China to adjust its behavior. China even tried to round up countries in its own version of a “coalition of the willing”—but we all know how that ends. Second, Hong Kong voters turned out in record numbers to vote in the Legislative Council elections over the first weekend in September. The results swept into office several young democrats, who have been pushing for greater political autonomy—even independence—from Beijing. One of them, 23-year old Nathan Law, received the second highest number of votes in the Hong Kong island constituency. With their victories, the democrats retain enough seats to veto any efforts by the pro-Beijing government to effect constitutional change. Third, China suffered a few high-profile setbacks in its going global strategy for Chinese state-owned energy companies. Australia rejected a bid by China’s State Grid Corp. to buy a majority stake in Australia’s electric grid—Ausgrid. And in the United Kingdom, newly-elected Prime Minister Theresa May put a temporary hold on the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, in which China has a one-third stake. Previous Prime Minister David Cameron had hailed the plant as a “historic deal.” In both cases, Chinese officials or official media stated that further Chinese investment could well be harmed by these setbacks. Fourth, China’s G20 moment was hijacked by the confusion surrounding President Obama’s path off his airplane. Did China deliberately snub President Obama by not providing a red carpet descent off his plane? Was the United States simply being difficult? Did a Chinese official really yell, “This is our country!” at a U.S. official? Inquiring minds apparently wanted to know more about this event than about international efforts to combat global corruption or to reform international financial institutions. And finally, China failed to deliver on its Olympic promise, earning just over half the gold medals of the United States and one fewer than the United Kingdom. No one outside China really cares how many medals China wins; people care how athletes from their own country fare, about athletes with compelling personal stories, and about athletes that transcend nationality like Usain Bolt. However, the Chinese media made such a fuss about the fact that the number of gold medals didn’t matter that of course, everyone understood that it really did matter. It is possible, but unlikely, that some of these hits to China’s soft power will prompt Beijing to consider how its policies at home and its diplomacy abroad may contribute negatively to its international image. In the Orwellian world of China, however, it is likely that none of this actually matters and some of it never happened. China won’t abide by the South China Sea ruling, it will continue to crush democracy in Hong Kong, there will be other energy deals to be had, the G20 in Hangzhou was a “great success,” and no one cares about winning medals at the Olympics. And if the South China Morning Post has it right, through it all, Xi can win at home by losing abroad.

Four years ago, when he was just fifteen years old, Joshua Wong launched a campaign to prevent Beijing from enforcing its own version of history in Hong Kong schools. Along with other student activists involved in his “Scholarism” group, he managed to rally one hundred and twenty thousand people in protest and eventually beat back the government’s initiative. During that effort, Scholarism raised one million Hong Kong dollars in just one day—with 25-40 year olds as the most supportive demographic. For Wong, it was a signal that young people really could achieve change. (Less well known, perhaps, is that Wong cut his activist teeth protesting against a high-speed rail link between Hong Kong and the mainland when he was only thirteen years old.) Since then, of course, Wong has become world-renowned for his effort in helping lead the Occupy Central movement, which called for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. For his actions, he has been vilified by the Chinese government, assaulted, and arrested—all by the age of eighteen. When I met with him in late April, he was in the midst of a ten-day tour of American universities with a brief stop planned in Canada. My first thought was that the pictures of Wong do not do him justice. Yes, he is slight with big black-framed glasses, but in person, he is less the fierce intensity captured in the many protest photos taken of him than preternaturally calm. In fact, the word that first came to my mind when being introduced was luminous. Wong also has an impish sense of humor that appeared when we talked about the decision of the British newspaper the Independent to publish a front page photo of him during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the United Kingdom last October. (The two were in the United Kingdom at the same time.) Wong will undoubtedly need that humor to see him through his next endeavor. He is in the process of transforming his activism from the immediacy of issue-based campaigns to a longer-term process of political change. He has co-founded a new political party, Demosisto, which is committed to self-determination for Hong Kong.  The party has thirty core members and plans to run candidates in two districts in the next legislative council election in September. (Wong, himself, is too young to run for a seat, but that has not stopped him. He is trying to change the eligibility requirement from twenty-one to eighteen years of age.) Wong’s time horizon for political change in Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland is three decades—just sometime before 2047, when the Basic Law expires and when, he notes, he will be fifty-one years old. He is developing a sophisticated arsenal of arguments rooted in Hong Kong’s history and seeking ideas for how Hong Kong can expand its international space. He feels confident, too, about the growing popular discourse within Hong Kong over independence and self-determination. Part of Wong’s strategy is to learn from other civil society activists. He has already engaged with a wide range of civil society leaders throughout Southeast Asia, and a trip to Taiwan was particularly affirming. Not everyone, of course, is as welcoming. A year earlier in May 2015, upon arriving in Malaysia, he was forced by officials to board the same flight back home. (Purely by chance, a few hours after meeting with Wong, I had a discussion with an official from Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs. When I asked him about Wong’s experience, he shrugged and said that he wasn’t responsible for the decision, but he understood it, implicitly acknowledging that Malaysia didn’t want to antagonize China.) In the absence of political change on the mainland, it is easy to believe that betting on Joshua Wong and his quest would be foolhardy. (After all, almost three decades after Tiananmen, political change has not materialized.) However, in my forty-five minutes with him, I came to appreciate that foolhardy would best be applied to those who bet against him.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, and Ariella Rotenberg look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Xi Jinping visits Indonesia and Pakistan. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan and Indonesia this week. In Pakistan, he signed agreements worth more than $28 billion as part of the new “Silk Road,” an ambitious land and maritime economic corridor connecting China to Europe and the Middle East. Pakistan will invest part of the money in infrastructure proejcts, including a deepwater port at Gwadar and railroads from Baluchistan into western China. In Indonesia, Xi attended the Asian-African Conference. Xi Jinping and  Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo held bilateral talks on the sidelines of the conference to discuss investments in Indonesian development. This pledge came on the heels of Jokowi’s announcement that Indonesia plans to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Bank. At the conference, Xi spoke about the importance of developed countries investing in the developing world “with no political strings attached,” while Jokowi, in his keynote address, called for a new world order not dominated by Western-controlled financial institutions. Xi also met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, despite a speech by Abe in which he warned against powerful nations imposing on the weak. 2. Farmer suicide sparks debate and tension in India. During a rally organized by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi to protest a proposed land acquisition bill, farmer Gajendra Singh Rajput hanged himself in plain sight sending shockwaves throughout the capital. The farmer spent his final days unsuccessfully trying to convine government officials to compensate him for his crop losses due to erratic weather. The incident is not an anomaly though; in Gajendra’s home state of Rajasthan, forty-one farmer suicides occurred in the past two months alone. Accusations have been levied at the government for not doing enough to help struggling farmers, the police for not intervening, and at AAP for continuing the rally and allegedly supporting the suicide. Farmers face the whims of the weather, but also harassment, corruption, and crippling debt. The Modi government is keen to pass a bill to make it easier for the government and business to acquire land, but farmers claim that it comes at the expense of their livelihoods. 3. South Korean prime minister offers to resign amid political scandals. On Monday, Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo offered to resign, adding fuel to the domestic political scandal in South Korea. Lee was named, along with seven other politicians, by South Korean tycoon Sung Won-jong (who committed suicide after the scandal broke) as one recipient of bribes. Lee denies accepting bribes, but the veneer of political scandal has stained his legitimacy for the largely symbolic position of prime minister. The resignation is not final until accepted by the President Park Geun-hye, who is expected to return from her state trip to Latin America on April 29. Last year, amid the Sewol ferry incident, then Prime Minister Chung Hong-won resigned; two nominated replacements successively resigned due to allegations of corruption, and Lee finally took the post earlier this year. 4. Hong Kong presents plans for new election law. Hong Kong has entered the latest stage of determining its political future in releasing proposed changes to the electoral system this week. As expected, the draft election law follows closely an outline drawn up in Beijing last summer. The law allows for over five million eligible voters to cast a ballot for the chief executive of Hong Kong in 2017, a measure the pro-Beijing government in Hong Kong argues offers universal suffrage. However, all potential political contenders must first receive approval from a 1,200-member panel closely tied to Beijing. Minor adjustments raised in this week’s law–such as candidates receiving approval from at least 120 members of the panel–are seen as “totally useless” by leaders from last year’s Occupy Central demonstrations. The proposal must receive two-thirds support from Hong Kong’s seventy legislators, a chamber currently occupied by more than one-third pro-democracy legislators. 5. EU threatens Thailand with possible trade ban over illegal fishing. Thailand, the world’s third-largest seafood exporter, will have to implement “a corrective tailor-made action plan” in six months; otherwise the European Union will block seafood imports. About 15 percent of Thailand’s seafood exports end up in the EU, a total worth nearly $700 million. Karmenu Vella, the EU environment and fisheries commissioner, stated that in Thailand, “there are no controls whatsoever and no efforts being made whatsoever and illegal fishing is almost totally allowed.” In response, the Thai agriculture minister asserted that “we are confident that we will be able to implement the various policies of the ministry and can create understanding with our fisheries brothers and sisters.” The EU has levied such sanctions on Belize (which has since been removed from the blacklist), Guinea, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka; the Philippines and South Korea have been issued ‘yellow card’ warnings from the EU, but those were lifted this past week. Bonus: Chinese construction workers unearth dinosaur eggs. Construction workers in Heyuan city in the southern province of Guangdong unearthed forty-three fossilized dinosaur eggs during road repair work. The city, which calls itself the “home of dinosaurs,” won a Guinness world record for the world’s largest collection of dinosaur eggs in 2004. Road repairs have stopped until all the eggs are safely extracted.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Zhou Yongkang arrested. Former head of China’s domestic security Zhou Yongkang was expelled from the Communist Party and arrested earlier today on charges including accepting bribes, helping family members and associates access government assets, disclosing state secrets, and leaking official secrets, Chinese state news service Xinhua announced. The decision was made by the Communist Party Politburo, comprised of the twenty-five most powerful officials in China, meaning that it is very likely that Zhou will be convicted. Zhou held a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s top decision-making body, until Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012. The party has been formally investigating Zhou for corruption since July as part of Xi’s promise to tackle high-level corruption in China. A New York Times investigation earlier this year documented that several of Zhou’s relatives held assets worth about 1 billion yuan, or $160 million. Zhou has not been seen in public for more than a year. 2. Opposition party wins big in Taiwan local elections. Taiwan held elections for nine categories of elected office last Saturday. With a total of 11,130 seats up for grabs, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) trounced the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT), in what has since been deemed “black Saturday” for the KMT. The Taipei mayoral vacancy, one of the island’s most coveted political seats, went to Mr. Ko Wen-je, an independent who’s political views generally align with the DPP, which advocates an independent Taiwan. Premier Jiang Yi-huah resigned after the heavy losses, and President Ma Ying-jeou stepped down as chairman of the KMT party. Taiwan’s new Premier, Mao Chi-kuo, has since unveiled his new cabinet, reappointing most members to their previous roles. The impact of Taiwan’s local elections, and its utility as a barometer for the remaining Ma years, suggest that Beijing would benefit from learning to work with the DPP. 3. Sony hacked; North Korea suspected. Sony Pictures suffered a major cyberattack late November that rendered many of its computer unusable and resulted in leaked information, including employees’ personal information and full-length movies. Some experts believe that North Korea is responsible in part because it has tried to stop Sony from releasing “The Interview,” a film about two American journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un. An unnamed U.S. national security official said that North Korea is the primary suspect, though Pyongyang has denied any involvement, and other experts believe that the attack does not fit North Korea’s usual pattern of cyberattack. The film, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, will still be released on schedule, even though Pyongyang has called it “an act of war.” 4. Hong Kong democracy protestors weigh options. With public support for street protests flagging and government forces encroaching on the remaining camps, protests leaders are divided over how to proceed with their pro-democracy demonstrations. Violent clashes occurred in Mong Kok last week during and after a police takeover of the area, and over the weekend protestors attempted to blockade the city’s legislative offices in Admiralty, resulting in dozen of arrests. With seemingly little hope of government concession, the three leaders of Occupy Central, a more tempered faction of the protest movement, surrendered themselves to police; they were soon released with no charges. Student protestors, however, are as yet undecided on how to proceed—some have suggested that it is time to retreat from the streets, while others are still hopeful that they can convince the Hong Kong government to negotiate. Joshua Wong, the leader of Scholarism, one of two main student protest groups, along several other students, began a hunger strike on Monday, swearing to continue until he is granted an audience with Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive. 5. Indian “superbugs” lead to increased infant mortality. Indian infants born with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are on the rise; more than 58,000 cases were reported last year. Nearly one-third of all newborn deaths occur in India (800,000 every year), and these “superbugs” will lead to more higher mortality rates. Pediatricians in India report that such cases were nearly non-existent five years ago. The superbugs’ genetic code have since been found in cases around the world, including France, Japan, Oman, and the United States. Bonus: China gets punitive on puns. China’s policies seem begging for puns in the United States, but China’s media regulators have banned puns and “irregular wordplay” from television and advertising. The regulator’s website claims the puns could lead to “cultural and linguistic chaos,” by misleading young audiences in a way that is contradictory to traditional Chinese culture. Ease of communication via the Internet has led to a proliferation of perversions of traditional four-character idioms. No word yet on what the pun-ishments for offenders might be.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Leaders gather in Beijing for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. A wide range of issues are expected to be addressed throughout the week of APEC meetings, an agenda perceived as tailor-made for China. One of the most important topics is the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), an initiative critics fear will take momentum from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks. With the aim of rebooting Asia-Pacific growth, Chinese officials also announced a series of economic measures, including more bank credit for high-tech imports and quicker approvals for meat and seafood shipments. Other items on the forum agenda include an anti-corruption transparency network, climate issues, and regional support for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. 2. Suicide attack on the border of India and Pakistan raises security concerns in both countries. More than sixty people were killed in a suicide attack on the Pakistan side of the Wagah border between India and Pakistan, the site of a renowned flag-lowering ceremony where spectators from both countries gather each night. The attack occurred on the Pakistan side of the border, and separate Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) splinter groups have claimed responsibility. The groups cited the Pakistan Army’s ongoing operation in North Waziristan as the reason for the suicide attack. However, a spokesman from one of the groups also threatened that attacks against India were in the pipeline. Both countries have amped up their security in response to the deadly bombing. 3. New tensions mount between China and Japan over coral poachers. Japan’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned China to keep their fishing vessels out of Japanese waters after six Chinese fishing captains suspected of illegally hunting red coral were arrested. In Tokyo, lawmakers are demanding harsher penalties for poachers, while in Beijing, China’s foreign ministry said it was taking measures to prevent coral poaching. Tokyo claims that over 200 Chinese fishing boats have been poaching the coral, which is used to make high-end jewelry in China. The new flare-up in Sino-Japanese tensions comes as the heads of both countries prepare for a potentially landmark meeting at the upcoming APEC summit. 4. British banker charged with murder in Hong Kong. A twenty-nine-year-old British banker has been charged in a murder case after police found the bodies of two women in his apartment in Hong Kong, including one body hidden in a suitcase. Rurik Jutting, until recently a Hong Kong-based employee of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, appeared in court on Monday. The case is a shock to Hong Kong, where the murder rate is low. The victims, Seneng Mujiasih and Sumarti Ningsih, both Indonesian women in their twenties, are believed to have been sex workers. Though prostitution in Hong Kong is legal, many sex workers come to the city on tourist or domestic worker visas, as both victims did. 5. China passes counterespionage law. Beijing revised its 1993 National Security Law, replacing it with a new set of rules that focuses more on foreign individuals and organizations and Chinese nationals that engage with them. The law grants domestic security agencies the right to confiscate property if the individual or organization fails “to stop or change activities considered harmful to national security.”  The law comes as both the United States and China have traded accusations of spying and cyberespionage, and foreign nationals have been under increased scrutiny of late. Some Chinese leaders accused the United States and Britain of instigating the protests in Hong Kong, and earlier this month, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians on suspicion of spying. Bonus: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. Suntory’s Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 this week was named 2015’s best whiskey in the world, to appear in next year’s Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible. This year marks the first time a Scottish whiskey was not in the top five since the publication started in 2003. It also marks the first time in the publication’s history in which a Japanese whiskey topped the list. The Yamazaki distillery, Japan’s first whiskey distillery, has been making whiskey since 1923.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Asia responds to Ebola crisis. In preparation for the possible spread of Ebola into East Asia, governments in the region are building on lessons learned from SARS and other Asia-based health epidemics, stepping up aid to Africa, and taking precautions at home. This week, China sent thousands of doses of an experimental Ebola drug to Africa. South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced she will send medical personnel to Africa. Meanwhile, Japan authorized the use of an anti-influenza drug that was shown to fight Ebola in animal tests in Europe, and amended an infectious disease law to allow medical samples to be taken from suspected carriers without their consent. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke this week with U.S. President Barack Obama as well as British, French, German, and Italian leaders, vowing to provide support to contain the epidemic, echoing earlier statements he made at the UN General Assembly. According to the latest count from the World Health Organization, nearly 9,000 people have been confirmed with or suspected of contracting Ebola, and over 4,000 people have died from the disease. 2. Police squeeze Hong Kong protests. Hong Kong police forces have started to move in more aggressively toward protest sites, using pepper spray and batons on protesters in Mong Kok on Friday. Earlier in the week, a similar operation successfully cleared an underpass in Hong Kong’s business district. In the process, police arrested dozens of demonstrators, and a local TV station caught footage of an arrested activist being taken to a dark corner by plainclothes officers and beaten. Seven officers have been suspended for the incident, but more importantly, the abuse seems to have given the sputtering Occupy Central movement renewed momentum. The possibility of negotiations, both directly and through negotiators, continues, though the government has made clear that it will not make concessions to the protesters. 3. Japan asks for and denied revision of UN comfort women report. The Japanese government requested a partial retraction from a 1996 report detailing abuses by Japanese military forces against Korean and other women forced to provide sexual services during World War II. Conservative politicians and activists in Japan challenge the veracity of some of the women’s testimonies. The Japanese government had sent a top diplomat to request the revision from the author of the 1996 UN report, former UN rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy, who had called upon Japan to apologize and pay reparations to the women. The renewed controversy comes as Japan’s leading left-leaning newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, printed a retraction of several articles it published on the topic in the 1980s and 1990s that were based on discredited claims by a former Japanese soldier. Coomaraswamy rejected the request for the revision, and it is unclear whether further actions will be taken. 4. South and North Korea military talks end without progress. The rare meeting took place Wednesday at the border village of Panmunjom. Among the issues discussed was North Korea’s objection to the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea; on October 7, the North and South Korean navies exchanged fire near the NLL, prompting Pyongyang to suggest this week’s talks. Another of the Northern delegation’s complaints was South Korean activists’ slander of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un; South Korea has refused to concede on the point, citing freedom of speech. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has also urged North Korea to set a date for the high-level talks agreed to during the surprise visit by North Korean officials to the South earlier this month. 5. Malaysia takes the lead on combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Southeast Asia. Malaysian authorities arrested fourteen militants with suspected links to ISIS this week, bringing the total ISIS arrests in Malaysia to thirty-seven since April. Among the arrested suspects are men, women, students, and a Malaysian civil servant. The country’s defense minister called for regional cooperation to combat the terrorist threat in Southeast Asia and labeled the U.S.-led coalition efforts in Iraq and Syria “ineffective.” As ISIS continues to expand its recruitment efforts in Southeast Asia, concern is growing over the group’s potential to attract followers—particularly in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Bonus: Strange sea ‘alien’ discovered in Singapore. An angler in Singapore was in for a surprise when he reeled in what appeared to be a hundred-armed wriggling alien. He uploaded a video to Facebook that attracted almost eight million views, but experts have since identified the creature as a harmless basket star—a relative to the starfish with an underwhelming five arms.