Friedrich Merz must not ignore the man Xi Jinping wants to silence: If Beijing is willing to ignore international law, how can it be trusted to abide by the terms of a trade deal? -
Friedrich Merz must not ignore the man Xi Jinping wants to silence: If Beijing is willing to ignore international law, how can it be trusted to abide by the terms of a trade deal? -
Friedrich Merz must not ignore the man Xi Jinping wants to silence | Euractiv
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51513798
[Opinion piece by Sebastien Lai. He is the son of Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.]
China says it stands for stability and the international rule of law. Yet it has sentenced my 78-year-old father, British citizen and newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, to twenty years in prison for peaceful journalism. That contradiction should define every European leader’s visit to Beijing.
To mark the occasion of German Chancellor Merz’s official visit to Beijing, the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China on Wednesday issued a press release invoking friendship between the two states and urging trust in an era of instability. In a nod to Trump’s Board of Peace, it also notes that China and Germany stand by the central role of the United Nations and the importance of the international rule of law.
These are fine words. But they are also empty. For as long as my father, the journalist, prisoner of conscience and British citizen Jimmy Lai, remains behind bars, Hong Kong is proof that China’s claim to respect international law is a plain falsehood.
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In the same year that my father has been convicted and sentenced for exercising his right to free speech in Hong Kong, the UK Prime Minister and the German Chancellor have made official visits to China. While I understand the importance of advancing trading interests, I urge leaders everywhere to beware an economic partner who is willing to flout international law, ignore the UN, disregard human rights and put a frail, British prisoner of conscience through an unspeakable ordeal simply because he dared to speak truth to power.
This is not just a moral case. Hong Kong’s descent from the rule of law into tyranny is bad for business. It puts contracts at risk of being unenforceable, makes employers and employees vulnerable to political pressure and taints the potential of the free market with totalitarian control. If Beijing is willing to ignore international law, how can it be trusted to abide by the terms of a trade deal?
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