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Letters

Other than my general support for freedom from arbitrariness, there is a specific reason for my participation in the marches on June 9 and 16.
In September 2018, when I was preparing the final draft of a paper for an international conference in China, all delegates received an email from the organiser. It informed us: “One more thing to remind you, among the audiences of our October conference there will be someone sent by the Chinese National Security Bureau to check our speakings, to record the remarks that are ‘harmful to the state’.”
This was probably merely making explicit what had long been standard practice. It was nonetheless disturbing. Previously, the arbitrary arm of the Chinese state had been invisible.
A month later, at a conference in Paris where, among other things, we discussed early modern Asian pilotage material for Chinese and Southeast Asian coastal waters, two delegates from China were, at the last minute, “unable to attend”.
More recently, I was invited to another international conference in China on historical navigation. This time the warning was explicit and up front: “3. The … content [of papers should] not involve opinions or remarks that harm China’s sovereign interests….” I turned down the invitation and informed the organiser (a charming scholar for whom I have much respect) that I could not accept any invitations to conferences in China on such conditions.




I have no intention of harming China’s legitimate sovereign interests. However, my work involves the history of navigation in, and the charting of, the South China Sea. With an arbitrary and repressive state, who can know in advance – even an obscure maritime historian working on 16th to 19th century seafaring, navigation and the charting of Asian waters – what might be construed by some mediocre, parochial apparatchik as harmful to “China’s sovereign interests”?
And what if, at some point over the last decade during which I have given a dozen or more papers at conferences in China, I have somehow strayed over some invisible, arbitrarily defined and shifting boundary, into domains newly and capriciously deemed harmful to China?
Of course, Mrs Carrie Lam and her acolytes strenuously argue that people like me, innocently trawling the archives (which they resolutely refuse to enact a law to protect) to try to improve our collective understanding of the past, have the full protection of Hong Kong’s legal system.
I am neither blind nor stupid and need no “mother” to tell me what to notice and what to ignore. Like many others, I have watched what has been going on over the last 22 years. So, were our sovereign authority to decide otherwise, if Mrs Lam and her acolytes think I trust her or her officials to protect me, she really does need to get out more.
That is why I marched and will march again … and again … and again.
Stephen Davies, Tai Hang
China must respect Hong Kong’s unique role and history
The proposed amendments to extradition laws, the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown and the evolving trade dispute between China and the United States have commanded your headlines in recent weeks. In the weekend demonstrations against the extradition bill, concerns regarding all three coalesced into a perfect storm in Hong Kong.
What must be remembered is that Hong Kong’s unique role in the world exists because of its special relationship with China, its free and responsive legal system and its commitment to free trade.
The protests in Hong Kong came close on the heels of, and drew comparisons to, the Chinese government’s actions in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago. To sustain its unique role in the world, Hong Kong must clearly communicate to the Chinese government what it needs to survive and prosper. The central government must concurrently recognise and respect Hong Kong’s unique role, history and place in modern China. Together, they will both prosper. One interfering with the other will do unnecessary harm to both. China’s focus must be on its trade relationship with the US.
Dr Sidney Weissman, professor of clinical psychiatry, Northwestern University, Chicago


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