Letters | I marched for Hong Kong, because Carrie Lam and her government failed to make me feel safe

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A moment of rest after remaining overnight on the streets following Hong Kong’s second massive protest march in two weeks, against the extradition bill and calling on Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 8:00am, 20 Jun 2019Updated: 8:00am, 20 Jun 2019

Other than my general support for freedom from arbitrariness, there is a specific reason for my participation in the marches on June 9 and 16.

In September 2018, when I was preparing the final draft of a paper for an international conference in China, all delegates received an email from the organiser. It informed us: “One more thing to remind you, among the audiences of our October conference there will be someone sent by the Chinese National Security Bureau to check our speakings, to record the remarks that are ‘harmful to the state’.”

This was probably merely making explicit what had long been standard practice. It was nonetheless disturbing. Previously, the arbitrary arm of the Chinese state had been invisible.

A month later, at a conference in Paris where, among other things, we discussed early modern Asian pilotage material for Chinese and Southeast Asian coastal waters, two delegates from China were, at the last minute, “unable to attend”.

More recently, I was invited to another international conference in China on historical navigation. This time the warning was explicit and up front: “3. The … content [of papers should] not involve opinions or remarks that harm China’s sovereign interests….” I turned down the invitation and informed the organiser (a charming scholar for whom I have much respect) that I could not accept any invitations to conferences in China on such conditions.

I have no intention of harming China’s legitimate sovereign interests. However, my work involves the history of navigation in, and the charting of, the South China Sea. With an arbitrary and repressive state, who can know in advance – even an obscure maritime historian working on 16th to 19th century seafaring, navigation and the charting of Asian waters – what might be construed by some mediocre, parochial apparatchik as harmful to “China’s sovereign interests”?