July 5, 2023
Australia’s refusal to ratify an extradition treaty with China in 2017 and to scrap an existing treaty with Hong Kong in 2020 has been validated by the latest attempt to target international figures in exile from the former British colony. The $HK1m ($191,000) bounty placed by Hong Kong police on Melbourne-based Australian lawyer Kevin Yam and Ted Hui, a former Hong Kong politician who lives in Adelaide, owes more to the wild west than civil international relations. Mr Yam and Mr Hui are among eight people accused of breaking the sweeping security law imposed on Hong Kong by the mainland. Others targeted include democracy activists, former MPs and civic leaders living in Canada, the US and Britain.
Thankfully, there has been bipartisan support in rejecting Beijing’s actions. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “We have consistently expressed concerns about the broad application of the national security law to arrest or pressure pro-democracy figures and civil society.” Opposition acting foreign affairs spokesman James Paterson said the “unacceptable attempt to silence and intimidate critics of the Chinese government living in Australia … further demonstrates the corrosive effects of the national security law to democratic principles and the rule of law in Hong Kong”.
Mr Yam said the Hong Kong government was trying to underscore the “extraterritorial” threat of the security law that was imposed under instructions from Beijing after months of protests in 2019. The laws sweep aside any doubts that Hong Kong has been fully drawn into the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian control against its promise to maintain its special status under the one country, two systems pledge. Beijing’s latest actions highlight the folly of attempts by the Turnbull government to ratify an extradition treaty with the CCP in 2020. The measure was defeated by the opposition of Labor, some junior Coalition backbenchers and Tony Abbott, who made a high-profile intervention. As foreign editor Greg Sheridan wrote at the time, our political system determined, correctly, that we couldn’t trust the integrity of the Chinese legal system and that an extradition treaty would facilitate Beijing threatening and intimidating the Chinese diaspora community in Australia.
In July 2020, Scott Morrison suspended extraditions to Hong Kong after Beijing introduced the security laws. The reality is that Kong Hong citizens are voting with their feet and escaping to safe harbours, including Australia. Beijing’s latest pursuit shows how right they were to flee CCP oppression. International arrest warrants are a grim reminder that China recognises no international boundaries or limitations to the actions of its lawless police state. Australia and other countries to which the emigres have been forced to flee must dismiss with contempt any demand by Beijing that they help it in its insidious attempts to arrest the dissidents.
