Opinion | Hong Kong national security trial ruling faithful to the letter and spirit of the Sino-British Joint Declaration
- The meaning of the slogan at the heart of the court debate was never in doubt – it means ‘liberate Hong Kong from Chinese rule’. Hongkongers who sought to undermine China’s territorial integrity and the foreigners who supported them were acting against the Joint Declaration
The court – despite allowing three scholars to give evidence as to the meaning of the slogan for about a week, or a third of the total trial time – eventually found that most of such evidence is irrelevant. This is hardly surprising.
What surprised most people was that the court allowed this academic debate to take place at all.
There is no evidence that the accused is a history or literature scholar and that he intended to use the slogan in some holistic way to further Chinese history or literature. Nor is there evidence that the people in the street who witnessed and understood the incident are academically inclined either.
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First person convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law jailed for 9 years
Everyone in Hong Kong who had gone through those few tumultuous years knew exactly what the slogan means: it means “liberate Hong Kong from Chinese rule”. No matter how you dress it up or camouflage it, the meaning has never been in doubt. All you have to do is to ask, liberate Hong Kong from what?
