CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

MAX HILAIRE CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ of its national security law. China has perfected the use of facial recognition technology to identify and record the activities of its citizens. 76 The CCP is also adopting an electronic payment app to gather information on consumer spending habits. At the Chinese Communist Party Congress in June 2021, the regime adopted a new national security law that grants it far greater authority over Hong Kong than was initially adopted under the handover treaty. The new law strips Hong Kong of its autonomy, including the territory’s independent judiciary, legislature, and executive. The human rights of Hong Kong citizens were also curtailed. The law gives China broad authority to detain Hong Kong nationals who engage in pro-democracy demonstrations and to charge them with secession, subversion, terrorism, and collision with a foreign government. 77 The new law applies extraterritorially against Hong Kong citizens operating from overseas. Xi Jinping made his first trip outside of mainland China since the pandemic by visiting Hong Kong for the inauguration of the territory’s new chief executive, John Lee, and to celebrate the 25 th anniversary of the handover. China has rolled back most of the rights guaranteed to Hong Kong residents under the Basic Law and has consolidated the authority of the communist party over Hong Kong. Given China’s economy has surpassed that of Hong Kong and China has alternative financial centers in mainland China, the importance of Hong Kong to China’s economic growth is no longer as important as was the case in 1997. 78 As of 2018, China had ratified seven human rights treaties: the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination AgainstWomen (CEDAW), the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD). China has signed but not ratified some notable human rights conventions, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers, and the Convention against Forced Disappearance. China has not acted in good faith in ratifying some of these conventions. China continues to repress many of the basic rights enshrined in the ICCPR. 79 There are growing calls for China to unsign the ICCPR. China has used arbitrary arrest and detention of foreigners to pressure foreign governments to make concessions to China. 80 Chinese legal scholars have remained quiet on discussing China’s human rights policy, or the status of human rights in Chinese domestic law for fear they will be imprisoned. China is a signatory to the Apartheid Convention and CERD, which it relied upon to justify its anti-colonialism and Third World solidarity. Promoting and protecting human rights is not part of China’s foreign policy priorities. China gives loans to developing countries 76 https://www.amnesty.org/en/english/countries-asia-and-the-pacific/china/report-china (2019). 77 Hong Kong Security Law: What it is and is it Worrying ? at https:// bbc.com/news/world-asia-china 52765838 (June 30, 2020). 78 See FT Editorial: Hong Kong is going through a mid-life existential crisis, Fin. Times, (July2–3, 2022), p. 8. 79 LEWIS, M. K. China Must Stop Making a Mockery of the Rights Treaties it Signs , @ https://wahingtonpost.com/ news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/30/china-must-stop-making-a-mockery-of-rights-treaties-it-signs. 80 See, supra note 63.

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