The answer is, of course, Hong Kong. I will leave it to academics to unearth any objectionable similarities.
I myself, however, am not impartial about the two regimes. And I suspect that the 100,000s of Hong Kong Chinese now enduring the illicit takeover of Hong Kong by the Chinese government are not impartial either. They will be considering the reality of living under the two types of government. Like me, they would undoubtedly prefer British colonial rule to that of China today.
We would be in good company, too. Amnesty International will no doubt share our point of view. Why ? Well, it has just announced that it is pulling out of Hong Kong before the end of 2021. Their press release on 25th October 2021 explains:
Amnesty International will close its two offices in Hong Kong by the end of the year, the organization announced today.
The local ‘section’ office will cease operations on 31 October while the regional office – which is part of Amnesty’s global International Secretariat – is due to close by the end of 2021. Regional operations will be moved to the organization’s other offices in the Asia-Pacific.
“This decision, made with a heavy heart, has been driven by Hong Kong’s national security law, which has made it effectively impossible for human rights organizations in Hong Kong to work freely and without fear of serious reprisals from the government,” said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais, chair of Amnesty’s International Board.
“Hong Kong has long been an ideal regional base for international civil society organizations, but the recent targeting of local human rights and trade union groups signals an intensification of the authorities’ campaign to rid the city of all dissenting voices. It is increasingly difficult for us to keep operating in such an unstable environment.”
There are two Amnesty International offices based in Hong Kong: a local membership section focused on human rights education in the city; and a regional office which carries out research, advocacy and campaigning work on East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. All of the regional office’s work will continue from new locations.
“We are deeply indebted to Amnesty members and staff who over the last 40 years have worked tirelessly to protect human rights in and from Hong Kong.... ”
Forty years takes us back to 1981 and the era of British colonial rule in Hong Kong. Back then, Amnesty International could set up in Hong Kong, speak and campaign freely. Why ? Well, like all the businesses that had also set up in Hong Kong in the decades prior to that, Amnesty International was assured of the rule of just law, in accordance with the model and philosophy established in England over previous centuries. That English tradition was guaranteed by the constitutional settlement of 1689 – a Settlement resulting from a Protestant Christian culture, affirming the Magna Carta 1215, and establishing the constitutionally critical reign of the devoutly Christian monarchs, William and Mary.
Just compare that with the totalitarian and dictatorial mindset, philosophy and practice of China since 1949.
There is no comparison.
Let us just remember too where Amnesty International was born, and where it continues to have a registered office. It began in 1961 with a campaign by its founder, an English lawyer called Peter Benenson. Benenson began by calling for the release of political prisoners in Portugal – a country in mainland in Europe …
Amnesty still has an office in London at Easton Street, WC1 and its operation there is still registered under the jurisdiction of England and Wales. As it was back in the 1960s …
So, it was founded back in the days before the imposition of political correctness as mainstream Orthodoxy. It was founded and it operated effectively and freely long before the 1998 Human Rights Act in England – long before the Equalities Act of 2010; and before the establishment of the politically minded Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Amnesty International was established under English law, in London. It was established in a country which enjoyed freedom of speech for everyone – not just the politically correct, atheistically fanatical metropolitan liberal Left.
It was established in a climate where the official religion of the day was Christianity, not the counterfeit atheistical fanaticism spawned by today’s suffocating Materialism.
The younger generation – and even the middle aged today – may be forgiven for believing that freedom only began with the dawn of the 21st century.
It did not. The English model of liberty exported around the world began with the constitutional settlement of 1689 – one century before the French Declaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen !
It is time for the British government to remember that – and to act !
“Ray” Catlin
Reference link:
Conservatism Institute 