It surprised few when the United States’ secretary of state and the foreign ministers from Australia, Britain and Canada on Sunday launched a new round of attacks on the National Security Law in effect in Hong Kong by issuing a joint statement. Dancing to the tune of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been relentlessly promoting the Trump administration’s geopolitical agenda against China, the foreign ministers of the so-called Five Eyes alliance had missed no opportunity to vilify the law ever since its promulgation on June 30, 2020. 

But it is interesting to note that New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta opted out this time and was conspicuous by her absence from the “chorus”. Conceivably, Mahuta had realized the need to retain her self-respect and didn’t want to be seen as being at Pompeo’s beck and call anymore. More importantly, she must have wised up to the fact that the crusade against China and its Hong Kong Special Administrative Region perpetuated by Washington’s alt-right politicians serves no other purpose than their own geopolitical agenda against China, and that ganging up with China-bashers like Pompeo is in no way in New Zealand’s national interest. 

Sunday’s joint statement came after Hong Kong police arrested 53 opposition activists last Wednesday on charges of subversion under the National Security Law. It accused the Hong Kong SAR government of using the National Security Law “to eliminate dissent and opposing political views”. Such an accusation reeks so much of hypocrisy. The accusers are oblivious to the plain fact that no functioning government in this world has ever tolerated subversive acts under its nose.

For example, the central government of Spain has ruthlessly clamped down on the subversives who challenged the Spanish Constitution and sought independence of Catalonia from Spain even though they had only resorted to “democratic” referendums. Fellow members of the European Union, the UK and the US all voiced their strong support for the Spanish government’s crackdown.  

What phrase other than “double standards” would better describe the Five Eyes’ accusation against Hong Kong police’s law enforcement action against those who organized and participated in a plot aimed at subverting State power by paralyzing the Hong Kong SAR government in violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s constitutional document? 

Hong Kong police’s law enforcement action against subversives who tried to undermine Hong Kong’s constitutional order as a special administrative region of China is no different in nature from what the Spanish government has done to maintain Catalonia’s constitutional order as an autonomous region of Spain.