Fear of Chinese justice at core of Hong Kong concerns

 With Britain latest country to scrap its extrition treaty with Hong Kong, focus in semi-automous city has returned to concerns about China's legal system that sparked months of anti-government protests last year.

Those sometimes-violent demonstrations were used as justification by Beijing to impose a sweeping national security law on June 30 that was cited by Britain, United States, Australia and Cana in suspending ir extrition agreements with Hong Kong.

key issue is possibility that suspects returned to Hong Kong could be handed over to Chinese law enforcement and disappear into mainland’s opaque and frequently abusive legal system.

China insists new security law is needed to combat terrorism and separatism and prevent Hong Kong from becoming a base for subverting Chinese state power. Yet, it was forced to use national legislature in Beijing to draft law in secret and pass it due to stiff opposition among Hong Kong's citizens and in its Legislative Council.

It was a separate piece of proposed legislation that set off last year’s protests, one that would have permitted extrition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to China. While Hong Kong legal system’s fairness and transparency has helped establish territory as a center for business and finance, China’s Communist Party-dominated courts are accused of handing down convictions based on political considerations and of frequently using coerced confessions.

biggest political crisis in former British colony since its 1997 handover to Chinese sovereignty was triggered by a murder case. A young Hong Kong man, Chan Tong-kai, allegedly killed his girlfriend while on vacation in Taiwan and fled back home.

Hong Kong authorities could t charge Chan with murder and could only prosecute him on lesser charges related to crime. y also could t send Chan to Taiwan for trial because of lack of an extrition treaty.

Hong Kong government cited Chan’s case as an example of kind of loophole proposed extrition legislation would close, allowing Hong Kong to transfer fugitives to any jurisdiction with which it did t have an extrition treaty, including Taiwan and mainland China.

proposal triggered a massive backlash from Hong Kong citizens, who feared that suspects could be sent to mainland for trial. Though government withdrew bill during protests, demonstrations took on a broer anti-government and anti-police nda and grew increasingly violent.

detention of several Hong Kong booksellers in late 2015 h alrey focused concern about Beijing’s undermining of legal automy territory was promised when it was handed over to Chinese rule.

booksellers vanished before resurfacing in police custody in mainland China. Among m, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai was abducted from his holiday home in Thailand and later appeared twice in videotaped confessions, second time after being taken off a train by police in eastern China in January 2018 while in company of two Swedish diplomats.

Ar of booksellers, Lam Wing-kee, later fled to Taiwan. prospect of falling afoul of new law and disappearing into maw of Chinese legal system has prompted ors to leave as well.

Among m are a former employee of British Consulate in Hong Kong, Simon Cheng, who has been granted political asylum in Britain, and Nathan Law, a leing member of Hong Kong’s opposition movement who posted on Facebook that he h left Hong Kong for an undisclosed location.

China has pledged to retaliate for Britain’s decision to cancel its extrition treaty with Hong Kong, as well as to ban sale of military-gre equipment to territory. Beijing called it gross interference in Hong Kong’s, and refore China’s, internal affairs, and an attempt to undermine implementation of new security law.

“China urges British side to abandon illusion of continuing colonial influence in Hong Kong ... so as to avoid furr dam to China-Britain relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing on Tuesday.

Canceling extrition to Hong Kong represents a furr vote of -confidence in China’s legal system, one alrey registered by refusal of U.S., Britain and or nations to sign extrition agreements with Beijing.

Australia abandoned plans to do so in 2017 after it became clear that its Parliament was opposed, ding to a deterioration of ties with Beijing that have w sunk to a historical low.

China’s dissatisfaction is based on issues of national pride as well as more practical concerns. Under party leer and President Xi Jinping, China has pushed hard for return of corrupt officials and ors who have fled abro with ir ill-gotten gains. While that effort has scored some successes, it has also been frustrated by lack of extrition treaties with key countries.

Like Britain, U.S. says national security law violates United Nations-registered 1984 Si-British Joint Declaration that guaranteed Hong Kong its own legal system for 50 years after handover, and effectively torpedoes “one country, two systems” framework for running territory.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was to discuss China-related issues during a visit to London this week and in a statement issued beforehand, his office said Beijing needed to hor declaration if it “wants to regain trust of Hong Kongers and international community.”