Canada-China Relations committee  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. O

Canada-China Relations committee  The screen froze for a few seconds. You're having a lot of difficulty technically, so I only got the very last part. Could you repeat the first part?

Canada-China Relations committee  Welcome to the club of international fugitives.

Canada-China Relations committee  You've demonstrated that. We're half joking, but I think the implication here is that having this hearing, talking about any kind of Canadian policy toward Hong Kong and China that involves sanctions over human rights violations particularly, is apparently something that will tri

Canada-China Relations committee  HKDC has been part of a much larger global coalition that has been pushing. We thank the Prime Minister's government for suspending the extradition treaty between Canada and Hong Kong. I think the design of it is to have a dark cloud, because there is not a lot of clarity in a l

Canada-China Relations committee  I think that in the U.S. and Canada there are some very clear, defined parameters and mechanisms. That is not the case in many countries. Therefore, I actually don't know for sure which countries have an extradition treaty and, even if they don't have one, if extradition could ha

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes. Specifically, up to last year, before we were formed, I think that much of the international support had been more symbolic or an expression of solidarity. For instance, people hold rallies and there are protests in Hong Kong. They come out in support. They sometimes provide

Canada-China Relations committee  Exactly. I'll add one more note. We have heard from witnesses and folks in Hong Kong that calling for sanctions—which we have done consistently and submitted names and evidence, and have talked to State Department officials and others to provide targets and the rationale as to wh

Canada-China Relations committee  I think that is actually the primary reason, in my view. As Professor Cohen talked about, Xi Jinping is a one-person management. It is very difficult to hold together that kind of total control, and for years Hong Kong has been a place where they could not completely control and

Canada-China Relations committee  The short answer is that I think it should be a worry. I think, even more, there is the uncertainty it creates, so that people are beginning to self-censor, or companies will get into situations where they're wondering if they can do certain things and if they can speak freely a

Canada-China Relations committee  I think that what Ms. Boyajian talked about included Confucius Institute but also media outlets. I think there have been steps in the last few weeks to label and explicitly call out state-owned, state-funded institutions, entities or corporations, including media outlets here in

Canada-China Relations committee  We obviously saw it in the Houston Rockets case, where the general manager retweeted something and China literally shut down basketball for a time for the whole country. In my case, and to your question, people in Hong Kong are still engaging, but I think there have already been

Canada-China Relations committee  As you have seen over the past 13 months, Hong Kongers have been very creative and very resilient. Even just this week, Jimmy Lai, who was arrested, detained and then released, immediately went on Twitter to do his weekly “Live chat with Jimmy Lai” and is not being silenced. Josh

Canada-China Relations committee  I think we saw this on June 4 this year, in a memorial vigil that always gets organized in Hong Kong. Leading up to it, one of our former advisory board members, Lee Cheuk-yan, who is also the head of the Hong Kong Alliance right now, was explicitly banned from Zoom, the platform

Canada-China Relations committee  I'm not a cybersecurity expert, but I think TikTok is a great illustration of the kind of complexity around technology, supply chain and data management, and we have to take a look at it. This is similar to the situation about the global supply chain for personal protective equip