Amnesty International to close Hong Kong offices
Amnesty International will close down its local Hong Kong office today with its regional office to also close by the end of 2021.
The decision to close its offices was prompted by Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which Amnesty has determined will place employees in danger of violating it strict regulations. Since enactment of the law, over 70 people—many of whom were Hong Kong’s strongest pro-democracy advocates—have been arrested and charged with holding political views that challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule.
Although pledging “one-country, two-systems”, Beijing has effectively subsumed Hong Kong under its direct rule. Amnesty International’s case raises a unique dilemma to the CCP: How can China effectively govern a historically democratic region when imposing its rules would erode the institutions fundamental to protecting the people’s identity and rights? Hong Kong can be viewed as a testbed for Chinese cross-strait relations. In the case of Taiwan, if reunification by peaceful means is truly the goal (as stated by the CCP), the Taiwanese government will likely look to Hong Kong as the model of how the CCP expects to integrate Taiwan with the mainland using “one-country, two-systems”—a model which many Taiwanese may not fully support.
Wake up smarter with an assessment of the stories that will make headlines in the next 24 hours. Download The Daily Brief.
