How Beijing Is Exploiting The Pandemic To Expand Its Global Power
Beijing's aggression confirms that the Chinese Communist Party is fully committed to fulfill its own great power ambition regardless of the consequences to other states.
By Helen Raleigh
April 23, 2020
While nations worldwide were busy dealing with health care and economic crises caused by the Wuhan virus pandemic, Beijing is exploiting the attendant confusion to tighten its control over Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Beijing Tightens Its Grip on Hong Kong
Since summer 2019, an extradition bill that would have eroded Hong Kong’s judicial independence ignited the city’s pro-democracy movement. The spread of the coronavirus added a new dimension to the movement in 2020. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam faced widespread criticism for her refusal to shut down Hong Kong’s border with mainland China. Medical unions led a number of strikes in February to condemn what’s perceived as Lam’s failure to proactively protect health and public safety in Hong Kong.
In response to Hong Kong’s ongoing unrest, Beijing announced in the same month that Xia Baolong, a protégé of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, would be the new director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), an administrative agency Beijing established to represent its interests and coordinate political and economic policies among Beijing, Hong Kong, and Macau. Xia is infamous for ruthless persecutions of underground churches in the Zhejiang province. Putting such a hard-liner in charge suggests Xi wants to further tighten Beijing’s chokehold on Hong Kong.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/23/how-beijing-is-exploiting-the-pandemic-to-expand-its-global-power/
