Canada-China Relations Committee on Aug. 13th, 2020

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

I think that Canada should certainly do more and apply the Magnitsky Law to hold accountable the Hong Kong and Chinese officials who are implicated and directly involved in human rights violations. I think that needs to be done. I think a lot of NGOs are there to provide help to government to come up with the list, if you do want that list.

With respect to the election, I think it's just another way of stifling the pro-democracy movement and freedom of expression in Hong Kong. If they were to hold the election today, I think the pro-democracy movement probably would still prevail, notwithstanding the national security law. However, a year from now, that may not be the case, because by then the NSL will be much more severely felt, and people will probably not be able to.... First of all, most of the pro-democracy candidates will have been disqualified. Even for those who remain, I think a lot of Hong Kong people may be afraid to elect who they really want.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dubourg.

Mr. Bergeron, you have two minutes and 30 seconds.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to go back to a question that was brought up a little earlier about the joint declaration.

The government of the People's Republic of China claims that it is simply a symbolic declaration, whereas the British position is that it is a valid treaty that is registered with the United Nations.

What is the legal status of that treaty in terms of the law on national security? How can it provide a basis for Western democracies to be able to be involved in Hong Kong's cause, which runs counter to China's claims that these are strictly internal matters for the Chinese government?

My questions go to Mr. Davis and Mr. Rogers.

[Michael C. Davis]

Yes, the joint declaration is a treaty. It was registered with the United Nations as a treaty. Both China and Britain treated it as a treaty. There's no question about that. China tried earlier to declare that this treaty was no longer valid, that once Hong Kong was returned there was no cause for it, but if you look at article 7 of the joint declaration, you see that it expressly says that both parties are obliged to carry out all of its terms until the 50 years have ended. There's no legal dispute as to that.

More importantly, I think, Canada, Britain and the United States and all of the countries [Technical difficulty—Editor] Hong Kong separately have been invited. Chinese officials went to your capitals and asked you to treat Hong Kong distinctly. So beyond the treaty, there's this kind of “partnership”, I call it, or arrangement that all of these countries would give Hong Kong special status, which has worked very much to China's advantage. Two-thirds of the companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange are mainland companies. The mainland has used this as a way to gain international investments and a way to make them. The reliance is very substantial—by Canada, by the United States and so on—so you have both a treaty and an invitation to rely on the commitments in the joint declaration and the basic law.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Unfortunately, not enough time is left for Mr. Rogers to answer. Perhaps another member will allow him to do so.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

We go to Mr. Harris for two and a half minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Kwan, first of all, let me say thank you very much for your 30 years of championing human rights and for bringing to the urgent attention of this committee the activities of China within Canada. I think it's something that Canada ought to take in hand immediately. Hopefully, we will be recommending that.

Ms. Go, have I got it right about the efforts that we ought to be making in the immigration field that would help right now? These would be expanding family reunification categories so that they're not only for spouses but also for parents and children and other relatives; extending existing visas for students and those already in Canada; offering more student and work visas to residents of Hong Kong; ensuring that there's continued visa-free admission from Hong Kong residents; and facilitating safe exit by perhaps offering travel documents to those who require them because they've been confiscated.

Have I got the complete picture here, or am I leaving something out? Would you like to elaborate on any one of them?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

I just have one clarification on the people who are in Canada right now. There are at least 50 people from Hong Kong who are claiming refugee status. I'm suggesting that we grant them permanent resident status, just as we had a program for Chinese nationals after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. That's an important addition.

We don't normally accept someone as refugee if they are already in Canada, unless they're already declared an international refugee. Is there anything on that score that you would like to comment on?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

Yes, the UNHCR has an office in Hong Kong, but, unfortunately, they will not be taking in Hong Kong refugees. Then, in the neighbouring countries, people will have to go there first to make a claim through UNHCR before they are resettled in Canada, so it's very cumbersome and it's very difficult. That's why I think, if we want to help, we should provide a more direct route through the consulate for the people in Hong Kong to try to help them find a way out. It may or may not be possible, and it may not work for all of them, but for some of them who want to leave, at least we should give it a try.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Go.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

This concludes the time we have available for the first panel today. I know that all members deeply appreciate our witnesses' willingness to come before us today and your testimony. Thank you so much for being here.

We'll now suspend for five minutes or so until we set up for the next panel.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I call the meeting back to order. Welcome back.

I have a few organizational things to talk about before we go ahead. I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witnesses.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name.

When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Having said that, once we get to the questions from members, I'll ask the members to indicate whom they wish to answer their questions. During the question period by each member, you needn't wait for me to call on you then.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French.

I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, you will also need to switch the interpretation channel so that it aligns with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages.

When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. Furthermore, the use of headsets is strongly encouraged.

I would now like to welcome our second panel of witnesses.

We have, from Freedom House, Annie Boyajian, director of advocacy; from the Hong Kong Democracy Council, Samuel M. Chu, founding and managing director; and from the New York University School of Law, Jerome A. Cohen, professor and faculty director emeritus, U.S.-Asia Law Institute.

Each witness organization will have up to 10 minutes to make an opening statement, followed by a round of questions from members.

Now we will start with Freedom House, Ms. Boyajian.

[Annie Boyajian, Director of Advocacy, Freedom House]

Good afternoon, thank you.

It is an honour to participate in today's meeting, and thank you for your attention to the important matter of deteriorating freedom in Hong Kong.

I am the director of advocacy at Freedom House, a non-partisan, independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world. We provide research and analysis on the state of political rights and civil liberties, undertake advocacy on key issues impacting democracy, and carry out international programmatic work to strengthen democratic institutions and civil society capacity.

Our work on China-related issues includes tracking the status of rights and freedoms in our annual publications; special reports on Hong Kong, and on Beijing's global media influence, and on the oppression of religious groups in China; and advocacy work on all of these issues, including vocal support for the imposition of sanctions on officials involved in rights abuses in Hong Kong and mainland China.

As you may have seen, this work landed Freedom House on a list of organizations sanctioned by Beijing last December. We were not deterred, and our continued focus on the rapidly deteriorating rights situation in Hong Kong resulted in Freedom House president, Mike Abramowitz, being one of 11 Americans sanctioned just this week by the Chinese Communist Party for “bad behaviour” related to Hong Kong. The inconvenience these sanctions pose to Freedom House staff pales in comparison to the sacrifices made by those in Hong Kong and mainland China seeking to protect and promote rights and freedoms. It is our honour to stand with them.

Freedom House has tracked a decline in democracy and human rights conditions in Hong Kong over the last decade, alongside increasing interference by the Chinese government. This decline stems from worsening repression in China as a whole as Xi Jinping has intensified efforts to exert control both at home and abroad. Our “Freedom in the World” scores for both mainland China and Hong Kong have never been lower.

The one country, two systems framework that was worked out before the 1997 handover was, as you know, supposed to guarantee autonomy and protection of rights in Hong Kong until 2047. Of course, this has not happened in practice. The CCP began tightening control in Hong Kong long before 2047. The current protest movement, which I must point out was entirely initiated by the people of Hong Kong and is completely citizen-led, began last March and is bigger and more intense than past pro-democracy demonstrations there. Protesters have faced violence from police and pro-Beijing thugs. Some have recorded mistreatment and detention, including sexual abuse, and many have raised concerns about mysterious supposed suicides of protesters.

Unable to silence the justified and growing unrest in Hong Kong, Beijing effectively terminated the one country, two systems model by imposing the sweeping new national security law. As you know, this law effectively criminalizes dissent by anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Since the law took effect on June 30, we are witnessing the transformation of Hong Kong into an authoritarian state at breakneck speed.

Why should anyone in Canada care about repression in Hong Kong, especially given all that's going on in the world? There are the economic and security arguments. Hong Kong is home to 300,000 Canadians. It is Canada's third-largest market for the export of services, and 13th largest market for the export of merchandise, which together totalled $5.1 billion in 2017.

What is probably most compelling to the public is the fact that CCP repression in Hong Kong is directly impacting what people are able to do in their daily lives, even in Canada. Canadians living in Hong Kong are, of course, at risk of arrest. They may also fall victim to politically motivated arrests, besides just national security law issues, as we have seen happen in mainland China. You are, of course, well aware of the cases of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Perhaps less well known is the case of Sun Qian, a Canadian citizen just sentenced in Beijing to eight years in prison for being a Falun Gong practitioner. It is possible that these types of arrests could now also occur in Hong Kong.

Repression in Hong Kong poses a direct threat to those living in Canada too. The CCP is well-known for targeting dissidents and critics living abroad. As you heard on Tuesday, the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China and Amnesty International Canada did a wonderful report on the harassment and intimidation faced by individuals in Canada working on China human rights issues. The report found that advocates across Canada are increasingly facing threats, intimidation and harassment for their work on human rights in China. The report also noted that many of these incidents are occurring on university campuses and in secondary schools. We see similar tactics in the U.S.

Hong Kong's national security law takes the risks of intimidation and surveillance a step further. It criminalizes provoking hatred toward the Chinese and Hong Kong governments or colluding with foreign powers. Anyone deemed guilty of subverting state powers or inciting secession could face life in prison. It even applies to actions undertaken outside the region by people who are not even permanent residents of the region. This means that anyone in Canada speaking out again repression in Hong Kong could face arrest.

Samuel Chu, an American citizen, faces precisely this scenario. You will hear from him next, and I will let him tell his own story. The fact that he, as an American citizen, is wanted for arrest in Hong Kong due to advocacy work done in the U.S. signals just how far the CCP is attempting to extend repression.

There are also reports that Hong Kong authorities are seeking Jimmy Lai's American assistant, Mark Simon. Mr. Chu and Mr. Simon both risk arrest and possibly decades behind bars were they to travel to any country that might extradite them to mainland China or Hong Kong.

Repression in Hong Kong also impacts the information available to Canadians, the products and services they purchase and the news and entertainment they consume. Many scholars and politicians in Hong Kong have served as important sources of information for policy-makers and academics around the world, not just about what is happening in Hong Kong but also about what is occurring in mainland China and elsewhere in Asia. Many of these voices are no longer accessible. Prominent academics, activists, journalists and political candidates have been arrested in recent weeks. Others have been scared into silence. Political groups and advocacy coalitions have disbanded, removing reports and materials from the web, deleting social media accounts and changing phone numbers and email addresses. We do not yet know the long-term impacts of this loss of critical information, but it is not insignificant.

Hong Kong has also emerged as a new CCP red line for international corporations, which have come under pressure to censor their own communications and products. Air Canada, the Royal Bank and Canadian multinationals like Apple, Amazon and Siemens have all been accused by the CCP of supposedly listing Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan incorrectly on their websites and have faced enormous pressure to modify their websites accordingly.

In October 2019, the National Basketball Association found itself in hot water after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong”. Chinese officials expressed outrage. The Chinese Basketball Association cut ties with the Rockets, and Chinese state television refused to air Rockets games. The NBA and various players quickly apologized and distanced themselves from the tweet, which in turn sparked criticism from groups like ours that objected to the NBA's failure to defend free speech. Hundreds showed up to NBA games to protest, including about 300 people wearing “Stand with Hong Kong” T-shirts at the Toronto Raptors season opener. Elsewhere, pro-democracy protesters were ejected from games or had their signs confiscated for holding up slogans as benign as “Google Uighurs”.

Canadian media has also been impacted by repression in Hong Kong and mainland China. Over the past decade, top CCP officials have overseen a dramatic expansion in efforts to influence public debate and media coverage around the world, including pressuring newsrooms to censor content critical of the regime. Two journalists at Canada's Global Chinese Press were fired in 2016 and 2017 after publishing content deemed displeasing to Beijing.

CCP repression is even making its way into living rooms across Canada via Chinese state-run television. Despite a 2006 ruling by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that CCTV-4 could continue to operate in Canada only if it remained in compliance with broadcasting regulations, both CCTV-4 and CGTN have broadcast false information about Hong Kong protests and the retention of Uighurs and about 30 forced confessions, all viewable by anyone in Canada who tunes in to these stations.

We at Freedom House are often told that, although repression in Hong Kong is terrible, it doesn't impact us here, but that's just not true. CCP repression is already shaping what we can say, where we can travel, the products we buy, and even the news we read. It's bad enough that the CCP routinely breaks Chinese laws and international commitments by violating the rights of people in mainland China and Hong Kong. The regime certainly should not be permitted to do so in Canada.

I look forward to sharing specific recommendations during the question and answer time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Boyajian.

Now we'll hear from Mr. Chu for up to 10 minutes, please.

[Samuel M. Chu, Founding and Managing Director, Hong Kong Democracy Council]

Thank you, Chair and committee, for having me.

I am the managing director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, HKDC, based in Washington, D.C. We are the first U.S.-based organization advocating on behalf of Hong Kong's autonomy and basic freedoms that is led by U.S. citizens. Our mission is focused on influencing and informing U.S. policy towards Hong Kong and China.

I want to make that clear up front, because on July 30, I went to bed and woke up the next morning with notification and media reports that I am now a wanted felon, or at least a wanted fugitive. Chinese media leaked a report on July 30 that the Hong Kong authorities and police have issued arrest warrants for six pro-democracy activists who are promoting democracy in Hong Kong but are currently overseas. I am one of the six, and the charges are for incitement of secession and collusion with foreign powers. This was part of the national security law that was concocted by Beijing in secret and then rolled out on July 1 and implemented at the same time it was made public for the first time. Both of the crimes that I am allegedly accused of are punishable by life in prison.

I am different from the others on the list and others who have experienced and encountered harassment and arrests in Hong Kong since implementation of the law. I have been an American citizen for 25 years. I left Hong Kong and arrived in Los Angeles, California, in 1990. However, the national security law in article 38 states the following specifically: This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region.

In other words, every provision of the national security law applies to everyone outside of Hong Kong. Nobody is beyond the law's reach, not me as a U.S. citizen on American soil, not the 85,000 Americans who are living and working in Hong Kong, and not the estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Canadian citizens who are living and working in Hong Kong itself.

My surprising status as an international fugitive illustrates the imminent threat to freedom and free expression that not only Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are experiencing and have been experiencing, but also that we have been warning over the past year is coming to not just American soil but Canadian soil.

Since the implementation of the national security law, we have already seen the direct impact it has had on crackdowns in Hong Kong, specifically with regard to the rights of free speech, free press, free assembly and protest. The first arrest made under the national security law in Hong Kong was of a young person who was wearing a T-shirt that said “Free Hong Kong”. The authorities also targeted a 19-year-old protester whose crime was having a sticker on the back of his phone that simply had the word “conscience” written in Chinese.

In the following days, the government disqualified 12 separate pro-democracy candidates from the LegCo election, which the government eventually postponed for a year. Benny Tai, a professor, who was a co-founder with my father of the umbrella movement in 2014, was ousted from his job as a tenured professor at Hong Kong University. Four young protesters were arrested for posting online that the government claims were inciting secession. Schools have now banned the use of slogans and the singing of the protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong in all schools.

As the assault on basic freedoms has been happening, as Ms. Boyajian pointed out, Americans, Canadians and folks in western countries have been watching from afar, from a safe distance, with solidarity through social media and our solidarity protests and rallies. But now, as my experience has shown, you don't have to be in Hong Kong to be in trouble with the Chinese regime and the Hong Kong government. Simply tweeting or re-tweeting someone else's tweet could earn you an arrest warrant and a prison sentence.

Article 38 as written can seem very outlandish, impractical and unenforceable. Its impact is not just in what it can or cannot do legally, but is designed to create a chilling effect that essentially threatens and tries to implicate anyone and everyone who is not just directly speaking out for Hong Kong, but is also connected to people who are speaking out to Hong Kong.

In my case, for example, I can no longer travel to Hong Kong or any countries with any active extradition treaties with Hong Kong or China, or any countries that have friendly relations with China, without risking arrest and almost certain extradition to the mainland. I cannot speak to my elderly parents in Hong Kong without opening them up to, and subjecting them to, investigation and invasive searches by the police. Even anyone who is in contact with me here and who is not in Hong Kong could be blacklisted by the Chinese government or by Chinese-backed financial interests, whose influence is vast, extending from Hollywood to the NBA, Apple and Zoom, which we are using right now for this meeting.

I might be the first to be targeted as a foreign citizen under the national security law, but I will not be the last, because if I can be a target, then anyone who speaks on behalf of Hong Kong, who speaks out against the CCP, can also be targeted.

As I said in my introduction, I am a second-generation pro-democracy advocate. Only about 18 months ago, I was in Hong Kong attending the trial of my father, the Reverend Chu Yiu Ming, who was arrested and then charged for his role in “inciting the protests of the 2014 umbrella movement”. He, along with eight others, was convicted of the charges. He was sentenced to two years and, fortunately, because of his age and health problems, his sentence was suspended. This has been happening and will continue to escalate more quickly and more broadly.

My father supported the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and helped to build the underground railroad that smuggled dissidents out of China into western countries. I was sent away in consideration of the anticipated risk involved in building those operations and being a part of that movement.

That crackdown has happened every day since June 4, 1989. It has been spreading rapidly in Hong Kong since July 1. Two weeks ago, it spread to American soil and it will soon be, and already is, on Canadian soil.

Human rights may not have been a priority in U.S. policies toward China a year ago, but you can be assured that human rights, along with the control and violation of human rights, is the top priority of the Chinese regime. I say this because without it, they will lose control of their government and lose the control they are trying so hard to implement, not just on the mainland and in Xinjiang and Tibet, but also in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and now in western nations.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chu.

Now, Professor Cohen, please, you have up to 10 minutes.

[Jerome A. Cohen, Professor and Faculty Director Emeritus, U.S.-Asia Law Institute, New York University School of Law]

We have just heard two wonderful reports. Let me try to supplement what has been said.

I don't know what the three witnesses told you in the first session this morning, but it would seem to me that you've probably heard five first-class statements already.

I want to point out that, of the three witnesses this afternoon, I represent organizations that have not yet been punished by the national security law, but I suppose we have good prospects.

In the past, I've been happy to co-operate with Freedom House and with the new Hong Kong Democracy Council. Perhaps I can rely, as Samuel's father has, on old age as a defence against actual imprisonment, but I can't guarantee anything about conviction.

Let me give some perspective. I first went to Hong Kong in 1961. I lived there in 1962 and 1963. I've been a frequent visitor. I lived there again at the beginning of 1979. I've seen Hong Kong's connection to China develop over many years. Initially, in the sixties, in the early part of the decade, Hong Kong was a classic British colony. To be sure, it was controlled by the colonial authorities, including the special branch of the police, and there were no conventional democratic freedoms. People couldn't elect their own government.

But Hong Kong, despite its severe social and economic problems of the era—which were largely the product of events in China, including the starvation of tens of millions of people in China at the end of the fifties, as a result of the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the political repression that began again in 1957 and 1958 in the so-called “anti-rightist” movement—received many people at its doors. In April and May of 1962, 60,000 people crossed the border from Guangdong province to Hong Kong before the British finally had to close it, because there would have been hundreds of thousands of people waiting on the other side.

Hong Kong had enormous problems then, but it was, essentially, a free society. Indeed, I could say what I wanted. The Brits thought my study of China from a base in Hong Kong suggested that maybe I was a CIA agent or something else, but they were very discreet. Nobody ever tried to stop me from setting up a research institute there. I could say what I wanted, and other people could say what they wanted. So Hong Kong, while not a bastion of liberal democracy, still was a liberal society with many troubles at that point.

Of course, as a result of the Cultural Revolution in China in the late sixties, Hong Kong went through a terrible period of turmoil. The police had to be very active, and by and large, they had popular support. That's a very important thing to understand—the police had popular support.

When I went back to live in Hong Kong at the beginning of 1979, it was a different place. Deng Xiaoping had brought China to a different place. He had presented hope to the people of China and Hong Kong. As a result, the eighties were a dynamic, optimistic, increasingly prosperous time in Hong Kong. You had 1984 marking the joint declaration between the U.K. and China for Hong Kong's future handover in 1997.

However, everything changed, as Samuel's remarks remind us, with the horrific slaughter near Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, and other suppression throughout China. That made it more important to try to adapt the Basic Law that was to come out the next year. Too, new fear was marking Hong Kong's population, and only limited impact was made on the new law. But when Chris Patten became the last governor of Hong Kong's colonial rule, he spent five years trying to prepare Hong Kong by guaranteeing people greater political freedoms and protection of human rights, all over the opposition of the pro-Beijing forces in Hong Kong and of the People's Republic government in Beijing. That's why he was denounced in such terrible terms by the Beijing government.

Since the handover in 1997, we have seen a progressive narrowing of freedoms in Hong Kong and increasing control of the Hong Kong government as the instrument, you might say, of the People's Republic in Beijing rather than the representative of the people of Hong Kong. That culminated last year in the enormous popular protest by a couple of million people, at one point, against the attempt to provide for extradition, rendition, from Hong Kong to China of people wanted by the central government for trial.

It's remarkable that although the People's Republic has managed to make, I think, over 40 extradition agreements with other countries, none of the Anglo-American common-law countries has ever ratified an extradition agreement with China. Australia came close. The fact is that Hong Kong has never had a similar agreement with its own central government, because the people of Hong Kong have long known that there is only political justice in the mainland under the Communist regime. That's what they fear. That's what they fought back. Now the new national security law, as you know, has brought extradition to Hong Kong. Indeed, it's brought a whole administration of criminal justice from the mainland to Hong Kong. You don't have to be extradited now to be under the control of the security police of the mainland government. They've come to Hong Kong. That's the principal accomplishment of the national security law.

You ought to know that Hong Kong has had national security laws inherited from the British colonial period, and hasn't hesitated to invoke them. It's nonsense to say that everyone else has a national security law, so why shouldn't we? Of course national security laws have different content. The content of this one is to install a repressive regime. The central government's security authorities will decide whether they want to transport Jimmy Lai, and even Samuel Chu, if they can get their hands on him, and not only try them in Hong Kong but also transfer them to the mainland for long incommunicado detention, potential torture, denial of access to counsel, inability to meet with family or friends and then a trial before a Communist-dominated court.

If you're tried in Hong Kong, the vaunted independent legal system in Hong Kong has been truncated by the new law. National security offences will be tried before special judges and without a jury. If you think you can challenge it by saying you've misinterpreted the law, that it's too broad, or that you don't understand that it's unconstitutional, given Hong Kong's constitutional background and heritage, that question will [Technical difficulty—Editor] Hong Kong, even the court will find on appeal. That question will be decided by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

So Hong Kong is a very different place from what it was in 1997 and what it was when I first got there in 1961.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Professor.

We'll now go to the first round of questions, starting with Mr. Williamson for six minutes.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much to all our witnesses. It is very enlightening to hear from all of you today, and I'm glad you are able to join us and share your knowledge and expertise.

I've got six minutes. I'm going to try to spend a few minutes with each of you. I'll ask you to keep your answers as brief as possible.

Professor Cohen, first, thank you for that brief political history of the territory of Hong Kong pre-, during and then post-handover. Could I ask you to explain a term very briefly, so it is clear to everyone? You referred to justice in mainland China as political justice. You don't mean justice by the ballot box there, do you? What is “political justice”, just so that we're clear on the terminology^

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Professor Cohen, it appears that your screen is frozen.

Would you like to go to someone else, Mr. Williamson? I'm sorry about that.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I will go to someone else. I'll come back to Professor Cohen.

Chair, I hope you'll indulge me and allow me to reset my time here since we have a technical issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

[Inaudible—Editor]