Uncommon Knowledge: Jimmy Lai And The Fight For Freedom In Hong Kong

 

In this special edition of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, recorded in front of a live audience at the Hoover Institution, I interview Jimmy Lai, an entrepreneur and a leader in the fight to preserve democracy in Hong Kong. Lai describes the struggles he has endured, including having his home fire-bombed, his family harassed, and his business threatened by the Chinese Communist Party. We also discuss the Trump administration’s response to the Hong Kong protest movement, how the NBA and other American businesses are finding themselves in an awkward position navigating between their business interests and their politics, and what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. Finally, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on its citizens.

Recorded on October 20, 2019.

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  1. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Peter,

    When the Soviet Union fell we had a brief moment of clarity where we realized that our values were correct and Marxism was a disaster. Unfortunately, we got sidetracked by sophisticated intellectual arguments like Fukuyama. This created a total overconfidence. After all, over a billion people in China were still living under Marxism. History hadn’t quite ended yet.

    Our shallow assumption that once China got the feel of a limited capitalism it would go for the rest of liberal values, has proved very wrong. Jimmy Lai is exactly the guy we need to be listening to. No more Thomas L. Friedman China fantasyland. We’ve got to face up to this reality. It will take more than just economics to fix China. They must take on the Western values of Democracy & Human Rights.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #1
  2. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Peter Robinson:what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. Finally, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on its citizens.

    It should not be uncommon knowledge that Hong Kong is, as a matter of 1997 law, destined to be “just another city in Communist China” in 2047, less than 30 years from today. 

    Hong Kong was granted a 50 year grace period. The only legitimate objections today are grounded in clear violations of the agreed deal and Basic Law, as written. President Trump has highlighted Beijing’s behavior towards Hong Kong as an indicator of trustworthiness in long term trade deals. That is the valid line of attack. 

    • #2
  3. Blue Yeti Admin
    Blue Yeti
    @BlueYeti

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Peter Robinson:what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. Finally, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on its citizens.

    It should not be uncommon knowledge that Hong Kong is, as a matter of 1997 law, destined to be “just another city in Communist China” in 2047, less than 30 years from today.

    Hong Kong was granted a 50 year grace period. The only legitimate objections today are grounded in clear violations of the agreed deal and Basic Law, as written. President Trump has highlighted Beijing’s behavior towards Hong Kong as an indicator of trustworthiness in long term trade deals. That is the valid line of attack.

    The line is a direct quote from Jimmy Lai in the show. He clearly feels differently. 

    • #3
  4. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Peter Robinson:what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. Finally, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on its citizens.

    It should not be uncommon knowledge that Hong Kong is, as a matter of 1997 law, destined to be “just another city in Communist China” in 2047, less than 30 years from today.

    Hong Kong was granted a 50 year grace period. The only legitimate objections today are grounded in clear violations of the agreed deal and Basic Law, as written. President Trump has highlighted Beijing’s behavior towards Hong Kong as an indicator of trustworthiness in long term trade deals. That is the valid line of attack.

    The line is a direct quote from Jimmy Lai in the show. He clearly feels differently.

    And. As Ben Shapiro is apt to say “facts don’t care about your feelings.” Telling the Communists they are breaking the deal to which they agreed, and that such faithlessness is being weighed in America’s calculations of trade and security arrangements, has some power, some change of success for the better part of a generation.

    Seeking more freedom than was agreed in writing in 1997 can be admirable, but means the deal is being renegotiated from a position of weakness.

    John Adams and Patrick Henry were operating at the edge of the British Empire’s logistics reach, where England had always had only a small regular force of “redcoats.” They were operating in a vast space requiring the British to send troops, equipment, and ammunition in small troop ships under slow sail power. The checks they were writing on other people’s bodies had a realistic chance of being cashed.

    Jimmy Lai was allowed to come here, and I expect his family all have current passports. He points out the younger generation, born after 1997, are acting out more than his generation. He also admits that the British did not grant the people of Hong Kong democracy, only a set of institutions that support a desire for democracy.

    What we are witnessing is a younger generation that knows it has a much reduced future and that is truly raging against the machine. If Hong Kong deserves “western” (a very bad mistake in terms if you really intend to win anything in negotiation in China) freedom, then why not the same for Shanghai or Beijing? Turn it around. From the viewpoint of a Shanghai resident, what makes Hong Kong people so entitled to extra special status?

    Now, it is perfectly reasonable to engage in some rough negotiating tactics to get back to the status quo ante, to the 1997 deal. Beijing gets rough, pushes, so find a way to push back. And any American president and Congress should take note, factoring Beijing’s behavior in this deal, where they have most of the power, into both trade and security agreements in the region. That taking note should be both privately and publicly conveyed to both Beijing and the American people, in the course of our electoral accountability cycle.

    • #4
  5. Blue Yeti Admin
    Blue Yeti
    @BlueYeti

    In an off-camera conversation with Jimmy, he told us he is not at all certain he will be allowed back into the country when he returns from this trip. 

    Also, (and I’m asking because I honestly don’t know) did the residents of Honk Kong make this deal or was it the British who controlled the colony before it was turned over to the Chinese government? If it was the latter, then the people of Hong Kong have an argument that their voice was not part of this decision. 

    • #5
  6. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    In an off-camera conversation with Jimmy, he told us he is not at all certain he will be allowed back into the country when he returns from this trip.

    Also, (and I’m asking because I honestly don’t know) did the residents of Honk Kong make this deal or was it the British who controlled the colony before it was turned over to the Chinese government? If it was the latter, then the people of Hong Kong have an argument that their voice was not part of this decision.

    The people of Hong Kong had no voice, and so have no argument that they are entitled to any deal different from any other Chinese residents of any other Chinese city formerly occupied by European colonial powers. The Brits ran the place as a colonial city with a British Governor General in charge. PM Thatcher had exerted the very limits of conventional military might in the Falklands War. She had only public image, prestige, or “face” based arguments to offer Deng Xiaoping.

    No one on the face of the Earth, including the United States, was in a position to flatly refuse or even force conditions on Beijing regarding a Chinese mainland coastal city. The Chinese people of Hong Kong can only point to the Chinese government making promises for a specified special status for 50 years, while the rest of the Chinese people can point to the humiliation of the Opium Wars and the British Empire seizing Chinese territory, a point driven home to PM Thatcher

    Notice that Macao is not joining Hong Kong in protests. Nor are any of the other cities around the bay between Hong Kong and Maca0.

    The people of Hong Kong got a special deal for a set term. They did so after enjoying the material benefits of living under British colonial administration. It is that deal as indicator of Beijing’s trustworthiness that is Hong Kong residents’ strongest card.

    • #6
  7. Blue Yeti Admin
    Blue Yeti
    @BlueYeti

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):
    The people of Hong Kong got a special deal for a set term. They did so after enjoying the material benefits of living under British colonial administration. It is that deal as indicator of Beijing’s trustworthiness that is Hong Kong residents’ strongest card.

    Sounds a lot like some subjects of the British Crown who were unhappy with the status quo in 1776. How’d that turn out?

    • #7
  8. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Cliff,

    I would suggest to the people of Hong Kong to check out the Prudence Paragraph (my appellation) in the Declaration.

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. —

    The extradition law was a usurpation by Bejing pursuing the object of reducing them under absolute despotism. Remember, you are not entitled to just throw off such a government but must be prepared to provide new guards for future security. So far, I am not aware of an attempt for either a new independent entity of Hong Kong or a new deal written between Hong Kong and China in clear language that sets limits on Bejing’s power over them. The lack of this clarity makes support for the movement vague. Any protest in favor of Democracy is worth making but if you wish to invoke world support you should make your intentions clearly known.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

    …Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies Hong Kong; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain Peoples Republic of China is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states Hong Kong. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

    This should be the general approach.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #8
  9. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):
    The people of Hong Kong got a special deal for a set term. They did so after enjoying the material benefits of living under British colonial administration. It is that deal as indicator of Beijing’s trustworthiness that is Hong Kong residents’ strongest card.

    Sounds a lot like some subjects of the British Crown who were unhappy with the status quo in 1776. How’d that turn out?

    See comment #4. Geography, logistics, numbers matter.

    • #9
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