Hong Kong

The British human rights advocate has worked to hold China accountable as the regime reaches "well beyond its borders to silence critics," he says.

Washington shouldn’t neglect Taiwan and Hong Kong.

President Donald Trump on Friday delivered a free-wheeling speech to CPAC, a campaign-style barnburner that went over well with the raucous crowd. And on his way out, he casually got around to the important stuff: major new sanctions on North Korea.

The increasing repression being visited upon Hong Kong by Beijing is well documented. The Chinese regime is muddling in the city’s politics, which are supposed to be off limits. Beijing has also kidnapped several people from Hong Kong, even though the Chinese police legally have no jurisdiction…

In 1992, in anticipation of the 1997 reversion of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to communist Chinese rule, the United States Congress enacted the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act. The act made the findings that "the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China,…

Since 1992, even before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, U.S. policy has been based on the premise that Beijing's Communist leaders value Hong Kong's autonomy. The theory was that Beijing would not want to damage Hong Kong and so could be relied upon not to undermine Hong Kong's…

Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Chinese internet giant Alibaba's purchase of one of Asia's great newspapers, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP), should be a cause for concern for all who value an independent press. While Alibaba executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai claimed that the company would continue to allow the SCMP…

From Hong Kong to Harvard, erasing history has become a necessity. In the Chinese territory, it is the authorities in Beijing who want to eliminate any memory of the past; in Harvard Square, it is the Law School students. In Hong Kong, memories of its colonial past cannot be missed: the harbor and…

With the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing safely over and regional leaders departed, China’s new strongman Xi Jinping decided to lower the boom on Hong Kong. Police there began clearing the barricades last week from the city’s main thoroughfare with the students in…

On Sunday, the leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy protests abruptly scrapped a poll of protester sentiment they had announced just days earlier. The idea of the poll had been to get protesters’ reactions to two bones thrown to them by the Hong Kong government in televised talks held on October 21.   

Representatives of the student led democracy protests in Hong Kong are due to enter into a dialogue with the Hong Kong government on Tuesday.  The prospects for success are not good.  The two sides are far apart, with the government saying it will not even discuss the protesters’ chief demand – the…

Hong Kong

Should it matter to the rest of us that Hong Kong has erupted this past week with demonstrations for democracy? China’s rulers say this is an internal matter. Western leaders, while expressing concern, seem inclined to agree.

Hong Kong

For years, China’s friends in the U.S. have argued that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened: Taiwan would unify with China under the formula of “one country, two systems.”  Given the mainland’s advantages economically, demographically and militarily, it seemed improbable to…

Beijing has dealt another setback to democracy in Hong Kong. On Sunday, August 31, China’s central government dashed hopes that the chief executive, the top official responsible for the city of 7.2 million people, would be democratically elected in 2017. Rather than open nominations to anyone,…

Over half a million people filled the streets of Hong Kong on July 1, marching for democracy on the anniversary of the British colony’s handover to Chinese Communist rule in 1997. On June 29, an unofficial referendum organized by democracy activists concluded with 800,000 votes cast—more than…

At the beginning of this month, two prominent Hong Kong democracy advocates visited Washington to seek America’s support.

It's been more than a week now and I’m beginning to suspect she’s not going to call, so here I will offer Janet Yellen the advice I’ve been hoping to give her privately since the Senate confirmed her as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. My advice is: Think about John Cowperthwaite. By this I…

Obama administration officials may be upset that China intervened to help NSA leaker Edward Snowden leave Hong Kong but they shouldn't be surprised.   Beijing has intervened before to get its way on matters that were meant to be the purview of Hong Kong's independent judicial system and to stymie…

Speaking about Hong Kong's decision to let NSA leaker Edward Snowden leave, without handing him over to American authorities, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that "we find their decision particularly troubling." Carney added that their decision "unquestionably has a negative impact" on…

Andrew Higgins’s article in today’s Washington Post, “China denounces ‘Hong Konger trend,” follows on the Wall Street Journal Asia’s editorial about Beijing’s attacks on University of Hong Kong professor Robert Chung, whose polling of public opinion shows a marked increase in those identifying as…

The Washington Post has an interesting story on the escalating verbal attacks from theChinese government on America's top diplomat in Hong Kong, Stephen Young. (The Wall Street Journal Asia editorial on the subject here: “Paranoia in Hong Kong.”) The Post’s Andrew Higgins reports that the Hong Kong…

Hong Kong