Joshua Wong's Washington Ties and the Limits of Free Speech

The double-standard show Western countries are putting on is enough to make  your skin crawl.

Outrage Over Sentencing

Last Friday (November 6), a Hong Kong court sentenced Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison. He had pleaded guilty to colluding with foreign and overseas forces.

Ten Western countries led by the United States fired back with a joint statement. They claimed Wong's case proves the Hong Kong National Security Law is being used to target people for political speech or political activity. They demanded an immediate end to all “unjust” prosecutions under the law and called for Hong Kong people to be granted every right and freedom.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further. He said the United States strongly condemns the Hong Kong court's decision to once again jail Wong for exercising his freedom of speech, and he called for Wong's immediate release along with everyone else unjustly detained.

The Collusion Trail

Make no mistake: Joshua Wong stands charged with colluding with foreign forces, and the focus is collusion with the United States. Multiple strands of evidence show Washington instigating the likes of Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong to carry out anti-government activities in Hong Kong. Of course, the United States hopes the Joshua Wong and the likes of this world enjoy every freedom to overthrow the Chinese government.

Joshua Wong plainly colluded with the United States time and again. He first emerged during the 2014 Occupy Central movement, and Washington took notice, judging this kind of young protest leader worth cultivating.

So in November 2016, arrangements were made for Wong to visit the United States and meet then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Marco Rubio and other US political figures.

Rubio is now US Secretary of State. Given the background of direct collusion between Rubio and Wong, one can imagine just how neutral his statement on Wong's sentencing really is. This is nothing but a thief crying "stop the thief!."

By March 2018, the United States had launched a trade war against China, and relations between the two countries were extremely tense.

In June a year later, the Black Riots erupted in Hong Kong, with demonstrations filling the streets. Washington concluded the unrest could be exploited.

So in July 2019, it arranged for Jimmy Lai to visit the United States, where he was received by then Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and other senior officials, who cheered him on.

Just think: if Jimmy Lai were merely the media boss of one city, how could a visit to the United States earn a reception of this level? Apart from the US President, every heavyweight of the US government turned out.

If you believe Lai's identity is nothing more than a media boss, you are a fool.

After senior US government officials met Jimmy Lai, they widened the circle of collusion further. On August 6, 2019, Joshua Wong was photographed with Nathan Law and others at a hotel, meeting Julie Eadeh, then political counselor at the US Consulate General in Hong Kong (Eadeh has since risen to US Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau).

After the consular officials met Wong, they arranged on September 17 that year for Wong and others to travel to the United States for congressional hearings, where they were received by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. The trip burnished Wong's image as a student leader and cheered on the Hong Kong rioters.

Wong and the others urged the US Congress to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which amounted to calling on the United States to sanction China. At the peak of the China-US trade war, the United States played every card it had to pressure China, seeking maximum economic benefit and even hoping to use the trade war to crush the Chinese regime.

The Collapse Fantasy

A religious leader close to Jimmy Lai at the time went around telling people he had received a tipwords from senior US officials: "the Chinese Communist regime cannot withstand the trade war and is about to collapse."

These people swallowed the casual fabrications of US officials. They rushed in as a crowd and threw themselves heavily into street violence, saying they were fighting for democracy and freedom while in substance seeking to overthrow the central government.

Which country could tolerate such behavior, willingly serving foreign powers and seeking to subvert one's own country's regime?

Now the United States supports Joshua Wong, Jimmy Lai and others. Could what these two typical figures who collude with foreign forces have done happen in the United States?

Besieging Police Headquarters

First: Launch Protests to Topple the Government

On June 21, 2019, Joshua Wong mobilized a crowd to besiege Hong Kong's Police Headquarters. He later pleaded guilty to charges including incitement, and organizing and participating in an unauthorized assembly.

America has seen its share of street rage, from Occupy Wall Street in 2011 to the Capitol riot in 2021. But never has an American crowd dared lay siege to the country's police headquarters.

Now flip the script. Imagine some Americans flying regularly to Russia, getting repeated audiences with senior Russian officials, then mobilizing a mob in Washington to besiege the capital's police headquarters, their aim to overthrow the government plain for all to see. Would the United States tolerate it?

Lobbying for Sanctions

Second, lobbying for foreign sanctions.

Joshua Wong pushed the United States to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Even after the Hong Kong National Security Law took effect in 2020, he kept working with Nathan Law and others on an the international front, urging sanctions on Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong officials.

Now flip the script. Imagine an American politician standing before Russia's State Duma and calling on Moscow to sanction the United States. Would Washington tolerate that for a second?

Troops at the Border

Third, Lobbying Foreign Troops to Mass at the Border

Joshua Wong never had Jimmy Lai's nerve. Lai's trial laid bare just how far he was willing to go. He lobbied the United States to shift its troops stationed in Japan over to Taiwan, bringing a massive military presence to bear against China.

Now flip the script. Suppose an American lobbied Russian President Putin to move Russian troops into Cuba, right on America's doorstep, to threaten the United States. Would Washington tolerate that for a second?

The Guantanamo Standard

If Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai had pulled in the United States what they pulled in Hong Kong, colluding with foreign forces, there would be no treason charge. No need to wait for a court ruling, either. They would be shipped straight to Guantanamo Bay for waterboarding. That is America.

So the Hong Kong court's 10-year prison sentence for Joshua Wong, who pleaded guilty, is a punishment that truly fits the crime. You collude with foreign forces to topple the central government, your rebellion fails, and 10 years is already merciful.

The US government waged a trade war and failed to bring China down. Now it has flipped around, all smiles, patching up relations with China and starting a fresh round. And with that, it has sent the Joshua Wongs of the world on their way.

In 10 or 20 years, when the United States goes hunting for anti-China pawns again, there will be new 'Jimmy Lais' and new 'Joshua Wongs.'

Lo Wing-hung

Bastille Commentary

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

If Donald Trump is a true villain, then the Democratic Party is a hypocrite. And sometimes the hypocrite is more frightening than the villain.

The Wave Hits

The Republican Party just suffered an avalanche of a defeat in the midterm elections of the United States, heralding the end of the Trump era. When Donald Trump is truly gone, I fear we will look back with nostalgia on the colorful days of his time in power.

The New York Times projects the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote for House seats by 13 percentage points. That is a huge margin, and the biggest advantage either party has posted in a congressional election since 1976.

The New York Times argues that the scale of the Democrats' victory sends a clear signal. Yes, the president still has two years left in his term and can still wield enormous power. But Americans are saying the Trump era has begun to end.

Congress Grabs the Levers

The Democratic Party now controls both chambers and a string of states, and the first casualty will be the American investment in AI. Democrats oppose new data centers in multiple states. But for China, the real fight is political.

Start with the anti-China bills.

Congress holds the power to write laws and control the purse strings. With both the Senate and the House in hand, Democrats can seize committee chairmanships, pick which bills get a hearing, and push anti-China legislation on everything from tech competition and supply chain security to tariffs and human rights.

The budget is the other weapon. By attaching riders to appropriations bills, Democrats can ring-fence or restrict funds for specific policies: containing China, deploying forces in the Indo-Pacific, or clamping down on research.

There is a catch. Trump is still in office, and he has warned he will veto any bill he dislikes. Overriding a presidential veto takes two-thirds of both the Senate and the House, a bar that is almost impossible to clear in practice.

So Democrats will not go it alone against China. A hard line on Beijing is one of the few areas of bipartisan consensus in Washington. When Democrats push new anti-China bills, they will pull in Republican lawmakers as co-sponsors, ratcheting up the pressure on the White House and even forcing Trump to give ground on some China issues.

Taiwan arms sales top the list. Congress had already approved a $14 billion package, but Trump froze it to smooth ties with President Xi Jinping. After the midterms, moving those arms sales forward is one issue where Democrats can plausibly find bipartisan support.

Four Anti-China Bills

The US Congress also has four bipartisan anti-China hostile bills in motion.

The first is the "PROTECT Taiwan Act", which has already cleared the House. It says that if mainland China threatens Taiwan's security, financial threats will follow.

The second is the Stop Transnational Repression Act. It is aimed squarely at countering China's implementation of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, and it also reaches Iran and other countries.

The bill defines the crime of transnational repression in federal law for the first time. It has only been introduced in the Senate, and not even a full Senate vote has taken place.

The third is the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act, which has already been passed by the House. It targets what it calls Chinese companies' violations of US trade law through fraud, tax evasion, transshipment and other means.

The fourth is Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund Authorization Act, also through the House. It would authorize more than $1.6 billion over five years to create a dedicated fund against what it calls China's malign influence around the world.

For now, the four bills have cleared only one chamber at most. But with the Democratic Party set to control both houses, the odds of these malicious bills passing jump sharply. In the end, it comes down to how Trump wields his veto.

The Clock Starts Ticking

Now for the next shock.

The midterm results leave the Republican Party badly exposed for the next presidential race. If a Democrat takes the White House two years from now, the China containment agenda will come roaring back.

Trump followed an America First brand of the Monroe Doctrine. He refused to spend money projecting military power in the Indo-Pacific, even renamed the Indo-Pacific Command as the Asia-Pacific Command, and stopped building one China-targeting regional bloc after another. A Democratic president would do the opposite: encircle China across the Indo-Pacific.

Under the last Biden administration, Washington pushed two groupings. The first was reviving the "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" (QUAD), billed as promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific, which pulled India directly into an anti-China club.

The second was AUKUS, the military, diplomatic and security partnership created in 2021, with the United States roping in the United Kingdom and Australia. This one carries a much stronger military flavor: under AUKUS, Washington arranged the sale of nuclear submarines and had Australia dump France to buy nuclear submarines jointly built by the US and UK instead.

Count on it: if a Democratic president takes office, these China-encircling organizations will be switched back on.

The conclusion: the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong must make good use of the next two years to build themselves up and grow stronger, ready to fight tough battles again two years from now.

Lo Wing-hung