We also Stand Behind Hong Kong

Today marks the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China which is being celebrated in Beijing with their usual grandiose parade of troops and weapons. The celebration is different in Hong Kong where the parades are composed of angry youths who, with their adult supporters, are continuing to protest the dilution of the freedoms promised in the 1984 agreement with the United Kingdom that ceded the colony to China. One of the personal objectives of Chinese President Xi Jinping is to fully reunite Hong Kong and Taiwan which he considers are an integral part of China. The majority of Hong Kong and Taiwan citizens strongly disagree. They prize their freedoms and have no desire to live under the autocratic rule of Beijing.

In a recent Op/Ed piece[1] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote a scathing analysis of the Hong Kong crisis in which he assured the millions of Hong Kong citizens of American support for their actions to preserve their freedoms. He cites the brutal suppression of other “supposedly autonomous regions” including Tibet and Xinjiang where the Muslim Uighur population has been horribly persecuted.

As the author of the Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 which extended special privileges that have contributed to the city’s remarkable growth, Senator McConnell recommends both the US and its allies in the free world both voice their repugnance of these actions and instead adopt policies that will lessen threats to its neighbors and benefit their own citizens.

The Foundation for International Freedom also stands behind Hong Kong.

Byron K. Varme. Executive Director.

[1] Wall Street Journal August 21, 2019