Scully, the truth is out there

12/01/2024

Ronny has done a great job presenting the western double standard. Criticizing Jimmy Lai's ongoing trial as a form of "political persecution" is nothing short of political smearing of the most dishonest and despicable kind.



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Is calling for sanctions a threat to national security?

The long-awaited trial of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying finally started on Dec 18. As expected, Western countries and media decried in unison that the trial was a form of political persecution; that the National Security Law for Hong Kong is an unreasonable restraint of Hong Kong people’s “freedoms”, so much so, in the words of David Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, that it constitutes “a breach of the Joint Declaration”. Inevitably, a question arises: In our modern world, is calling for foreign sanctions against one’s own country a sacred “freedom”, or a threat to national security that ought to be criminalized?

To test this question, it may be instructive to look at the latest National Security Act enacted in the UK last year to see how this subject was treated. There are two relevant new offenses under the act that we should look at — the offenses of sabotage and foreign interference.

In relation to the first, under Section 12 of the act, a person is guilty of the offense of sabotage if he engages in conduct that results in or intends to cause damage to any asset “prejudicial to the safety or interests of” the UK, and the “foreign condition” is met. Conviction carries a penalty of life imprisonment. Under the section, it matters not if the conduct took place in the UK or elsewhere. “Asset” means an asset of any kind, including intangible asset, and includes electronic systems and information. “Damage” includes interference, loss of availability and loss or reduction in function, utility or reliability.

Under Section 31, the “foreign condition” is met if the conduct was, among other things, “carried out in collaboration with, or with the agreement of, a foreign power”. “Foreign power” includes the head of a foreign government.

From the above, one can immediately see if someone were to publicly and persistently call on a foreign country to sanction his own country and went so far as to visit a foreign country for that very purpose, then “prima facie”, he was engaging in conduct that was intended to cause damage to at least the economic interests of his own country and therefore, guilty of the offense of sabotage under the act.

As to the offense of foreign interference, under Section 13 of the act, a person is guilty of that offense if he engages in “prohibited conduct” intended to have an “interference effect” and the “foreign condition” is met. Again, it matters not if the conduct took place in the UK or not. “Prohibited conduct” is defined under Section 15 as, among other things, conduct that involves coercion of any kind by “causing or threatening to cause financial loss to” or “spiritual injury to, or placing under spiritual pressure on” a person. So obviously, calling for foreign sanctions on individual officials or judges will be considered as “prohibited conduct” under the act. Section 15 further specifically provides that any misrepresentation, express or implied, constitutes “prohibited conduct”. So to claim an extradition law has the effect of “sung zung”, or “unlawfully sending someone back to the Chinese mainland”, will no doubt qualify as prohibited conduct as a clear misrepresentation under the act.

Under Section 14, “interference effect” is defined as “affecting the exercise by any person of their public function”, or interfering with “services provided in the exercise of public function”, or “prejudicing the safety or interests” of the UK. It follows that calling for foreign sanctions on government officials or judges will undoubtedly constitute interference affecting the exercise of their respective public functions, not to mention interfering with services provided in the exercise of their respective functions. Last but not least, such conduct will, of course, prejudice the safety and interests of the country.

So the answer is the same. Such conduct is considered to be harmful to national security and constitutes criminal conduct. Even under the UK standard. That this is so is by no means accidental or unreasonable. International conflict in the modern world is no longer defined solely by reference to armed conflict. Nations can be dealt devastating blows by economic sanctions alone. Indeed, this is likely to be the norm rather than the exception in the present day. Why else would the US practice it so wholeheartedly and routinely?

I am not saying people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. I am saying more than that — that it is hypocritical in the extreme to brand criminalization of conduct calling for foreign sanction on your own country as “political persecution”. Let’s call a spade a spade. To criticize Jimmy Lai’s ongoing trial as a form of “political persecution” is nothing short of political smearing of the most dishonest and despicable kind.