Anthony Carty：European academics are misrepresenting, largely by omission, the history of Hong Kong, China that led up to the national security law and a new electoral law in Hong Kong
Anthony Carty
European academics and probably also American, but more especially European are misrepresenting, largely by omission, the history of Hong Kong, China that led up to the national security law and a new electoral law in Hong Kong. And I believe that the reason they are doing this is, to make it clear at the beginning of my presentation, the reason that they're doing this is that Europeans and particularly obviously the British are not facing up to the full implications of the colonial history and of racist imperialism of the 19th century. And I'm relying for this short argument on a single article published in May 2022, that's to say a few weeks ago, in the leading journal of Le Monde Diplomatique by a lady called Mary-Françoise Renard. And I think that this is basically very, very important to understand that the nature of this prejudice and the need for Chinese academics to systematically respond to it in a way which gets general public attention.
So the media have a major role to play here, but they must be led by serious academics study. It's not enough simply that the Chinese foreign ministry objects reasonably enough, that there should not be interference in the internal affairs of Hong Kong and that China knows best what to do in Hong Kong. I mean, I would agree with that, but that is not going to win them the argument. So basically the article published by Ms. Renard is how Peking has absorbed Hong Kong and abolished effectively the two systems principle. And the point I want to make here is not the really nasty rhetoric that she uses against China, but the elements which are missing from her historical dialogue discourse.
which I find quite astonishing, is that she alleges that in 2014, with multiple demonstrations took place when Peking refused to fulfill the promise to have election of the chief executive by universal suffrage, a promise which began to develop in Beijing and in Hong Kong since 2007. What she doesn't mention is that the legislation introduced by the Hong Kong government to facilitate a universal suffrage was vetoed and voted down by the pan-democrats in the parliament, making it impossible to have universal suffrage. The decision to reject it came from the pan-democrats in the parliament, not from Beijing that did not withdraw the possibility of universal suffrage.
She says that in June, 2020, when the national security law was introduced to facilitate this. There began arrest of a great number of defenders of democracy. So the broad description of people being arrested is that they are defenders of democracy. There is no attempt on the part of the article to examine the legal grounds that were made for the arrest of these so-called defenders of democracy.
Whereas Henry Litton, an Englishman who is a resident in Hong Kong, and who is a former retired judge of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, the court of final appeal, attest that these persons were arrested because they had broken laws and the arrest and the trial of these persons was perfectly correct in terms of the rule of law. But she doesn't need to study that and she doesn't have to know about it.But more seriously, she does not mention that beginning in July and going on until December 2019, that followed extreme and very widespread political violence, destroying university campuses, public transport, commercial centers, and attempting to destroy the private residences of police and to attack the families of police. She basically doesn't make any attempt to represent what actually happened in 2019. And I can vouch that that is common practice of the Western press at the time. There is no attempt to engage with what a level and a scale of violence that does give rise to the presumption that there must have been foreign logistic assistance, otherwise how could it have been possible?
Finally, she objects that the national security law itself allows Chinese courts to intervene in the affairs of Hong Kong where Chinese national security is involved, and that is to say, wherever Hong Kongers appear to be in collusion with foreign powers. And she referred particularly to in 2021, the closing down of the Apple Daily and the arrest of Jimmy Lai whom I also had the privilege to know and to meet when I was in Hong Kong. But she doesn't mention that Jimmy Lai is televised in Washington, I think maybe even in the White House, discussing with Secretary of State Pompeo how United States can help the democrats in Hong Kong. I mean that may be an ambiguous piece of news information, but she doesn't discuss at all the fact that the pan-democrat leaders from the founding of the party by Martin Lee have always considered the best strategy to put pressure on China is to bring in and call for the intervention of the Western powers. And so this is really not serious and not a serious academic description of what has been happening in Hong Kong. But on the other hand, it is given full coverage in one of the most serious intellectual, monthly newspapers in Europe, the Le Monde Diplomatique, which is translated into various different languages, and which is certainly read by a very wide range of politicians and public figures, a total misrepresentation.
And it is essential in my view that the Chinese academy and other centers of learning like the Hong Kong and Macau, research centers in Shenzhen and Beijing that they really do need to systematically trail through and respond in detail to this misinformation. One can speculate about the reasons for the misinformation, but I mean, basically the final point of one wants to make here is that, and I'm relying here on Henry Litton, an English Supreme Court judge in Hong Kong retired now, that it was the intention of Benny [Tai] and the pan-democrats egged on by the Apple Daily to elect in for September 2020 representatives in the LegCo who would use the LegCo to undermine the executive and introduce chaos in Hong Kong. I mean, none of this is understood in the West and none of the severe dilemmas that China has to face in trying to keep the Hong Kong project of one country, two systems going in spite of so much ill will is understood in the West.
Of course, there are two sides to every story and there is a pan-democrat side as well. But I mean, I think that the side I am highlighting here and in my definitely very considerable experience of Western media coverage of China, none of what I've been saying is considered in at any serious level. These are just one example of a top quality Western media in May 2022. So it's actual it's happening this week. This prejudice is continuing. I think it goes back to an inability of the Europeans to confront and to realize the nature of the 19th century history of relations with China.
In my view, these have not changed. As a professor of the history of international law, I have supervised and researched the diplomatic archives on the history of the 19th century treatment of China by European powers. And I found it impossible to find any academic journal in Europe or America that is prepared to publish this stuff. There is simply a mental block which is very, very serious. And so I do think there is a facade of intellectual culture in Europe, but behind that facade, there is quite a dark prejudice which China needs to confront directly as part of its ambition to develop in positive relations with Europe. So that is the little bit that my contribution that I want to make based primarily on my own professional experience. So thank you very much for listening to me.
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Anthony Carty
European academics and probably also American, but more especially European are misrepresenting, largely by omission, the history of Hong Kong, China that led up to the national security law and a new electoral law in Hong Kong. And I believe that the reason they are doing this is, to make it clear at the beginning of my presentation, the reason that they're doing this is that Europeans and particularly obviously the British are not facing up to the full implications of the colonial history and of racist imperialism of the 19th century. And I'm relying for this short argument on a single article published in May 2022, that's to say a few weeks ago, in the leading journal of Le Monde Diplomatique by a lady called Mary-Françoise Renard. And I think that this is basically very, very important to understand that the nature of this prejudice and the need for Chinese academics to systematically respond to it in a way which gets general public attention.
So the media have a major role to play here, but they must be led by serious academics study. It's not enough simply that the Chinese foreign ministry objects reasonably enough, that there should not be interference in the internal affairs of Hong Kong and that China knows best what to do in Hong Kong. I mean, I would agree with that, but that is not going to win them the argument. So basically the article published by Ms. Renard is how Peking has absorbed Hong Kong and abolished effectively the two systems principle. And the point I want to make here is not the really nasty rhetoric that she uses against China, but the elements which are missing from her historical dialogue discourse.
which I find quite astonishing, is that she alleges that in 2014, with multiple demonstrations took place when Peking refused to fulfill the promise to have election of the chief executive by universal suffrage, a promise which began to develop in Beijing and in Hong Kong since 2007. What she doesn't mention is that the legislation introduced by the Hong Kong government to facilitate a universal suffrage was vetoed and voted down by the pan-democrats in the parliament, making it impossible to have universal suffrage. The decision to reject it came from the pan-democrats in the parliament, not from Beijing that did not withdraw the possibility of universal suffrage.
She says that in June, 2020, when the national security law was introduced to facilitate this. There began arrest of a great number of defenders of democracy. So the broad description of people being arrested is that they are defenders of democracy. There is no attempt on the part of the article to examine the legal grounds that were made for the arrest of these so-called defenders of democracy.
Whereas Henry Litton, an Englishman who is a resident in Hong Kong, and who is a former retired judge of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, the court of final appeal, attest that these persons were arrested because they had broken laws and the arrest and the trial of these persons was perfectly correct in terms of the rule of law. But she doesn't need to study that and she doesn't have to know about it.But more seriously, she does not mention that beginning in July and going on until December 2019, that followed extreme and very widespread political violence, destroying university campuses, public transport, commercial centers, and attempting to destroy the private residences of police and to attack the families of police. She basically doesn't make any attempt to represent what actually happened in 2019. And I can vouch that that is common practice of the Western press at the time. There is no attempt to engage with what a level and a scale of violence that does give rise to the presumption that there must have been foreign logistic assistance, otherwise how could it have been possible?
Finally, she objects that the national security law itself allows Chinese courts to intervene in the affairs of Hong Kong where Chinese national security is involved, and that is to say, wherever Hong Kongers appear to be in collusion with foreign powers. And she referred particularly to in 2021, the closing down of the Apple Daily and the arrest of Jimmy Lai whom I also had the privilege to know and to meet when I was in Hong Kong. But she doesn't mention that Jimmy Lai is televised in Washington, I think maybe even in the White House, discussing with Secretary of State Pompeo how United States can help the democrats in Hong Kong. I mean that may be an ambiguous piece of news information, but she doesn't discuss at all the fact that the pan-democrat leaders from the founding of the party by Martin Lee have always considered the best strategy to put pressure on China is to bring in and call for the intervention of the Western powers. And so this is really not serious and not a serious academic description of what has been happening in Hong Kong. But on the other hand, it is given full coverage in one of the most serious intellectual, monthly newspapers in Europe, the Le Monde Diplomatique, which is translated into various different languages, and which is certainly read by a very wide range of politicians and public figures, a total misrepresentation.
And it is essential in my view that the Chinese academy and other centers of learning like the Hong Kong and Macau, research centers in Shenzhen and Beijing that they really do need to systematically trail through and respond in detail to this misinformation. One can speculate about the reasons for the misinformation, but I mean, basically the final point of one wants to make here is that, and I'm relying here on Henry Litton, an English Supreme Court judge in Hong Kong retired now, that it was the intention of Benny [Tai] and the pan-democrats egged on by the Apple Daily to elect in for September 2020 representatives in the LegCo who would use the LegCo to undermine the executive and introduce chaos in Hong Kong. I mean, none of this is understood in the West and none of the severe dilemmas that China has to face in trying to keep the Hong Kong project of one country, two systems going in spite of so much ill will is understood in the West.
Of course, there are two sides to every story and there is a pan-democrat side as well. But I mean, I think that the side I am highlighting here and in my definitely very considerable experience of Western media coverage of China, none of what I've been saying is considered in at any serious level. These are just one example of a top quality Western media in May 2022. So it's actual it's happening this week. This prejudice is continuing. I think it goes back to an inability of the Europeans to confront and to realize the nature of the 19th century history of relations with China.
In my view, these have not changed. As a professor of the history of international law, I have supervised and researched the diplomatic archives on the history of the 19th century treatment of China by European powers. And I found it impossible to find any academic journal in Europe or America that is prepared to publish this stuff. There is simply a mental block which is very, very serious. And so I do think there is a facade of intellectual culture in Europe, but behind that facade, there is quite a dark prejudice which China needs to confront directly as part of its ambition to develop in positive relations with Europe. So that is the little bit that my contribution that I want to make based primarily on my own professional experience. So thank you very much for listening to me.
