FPJ Edit: Hong Kong under the Xi Jinping boot

Arrogant China, power-drunk China did not take even 24 hours to prove its critics right. The first arrests of pro-democracy protesters under the new national security law for Hong Kong were made on Tuesday. The law snuffs out the last vestiges of freedom and democracy from Hong Kong. On Tuesday, even as President-for-life Xi Jinping put his dhobi mark on the new law which purportedly targets secession, subversion and terrorism in Hong Kong, the police broke a peaceful protest, arresting nine people. They could now be tried by hand-picked judges and punished up to life in prison. The commitment of ‘one country, two systems’ made at the time of the British colony’s handover to China in 1997 lay in tatters. The world was seething with anger at the new law. The US had already taken some punitive measures to deny special economic and financial concessions to Hong Kong. It was now considering treating Hong Kong at par with China in all trade, currency matters, thus hurting Hong Kong’s status as a major financial centre in Asia. The UK, the European Union and other democratic nations have decried the Chinese move to snuff out the last vestiges of autonomy from Hong Kong. But given that a dictator needs to constantly justify the power-grab, and thus keep ambitious rivals at bay, life-President Xi seems bent on tormenting one and all to retain power. Dictators do not sleep peacefully, do they?