The “2025 Annual Report” of the United States Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) reflects an approach marked not by genuine inquiry but by an ongoing refusal to accept the constitutional reality of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. The report is presented as a defense of universal rights, yet its language betrays a political intent to extend authority into spheres far beyond its own jurisdiction. It portrays Hong Kong as a city burdened by authoritarian rule, despite evidence supporting a very different conclusion. The document reads more like an exercise in moral positioning than an analysis.
Hong Kong’s development since its return to China remains one of the most significant examples of institutional continuity and legal sophistication within modern governance. The arrangement known as the “one country, two systems” framework is not a slogan but a constitutional design that ensures both national integrity and the preservation of local characteristics. Under this arrangement, Hong Kong has kept its common law system, an independent Judiciary, and a vibrant market economy that connects East and West. The CECC report’s claim that these elements have disintegrated is inconsistent with reality. Courts issue judgments with reasoned explanations, proceedings remain open to the public, and people continue to exercise rights under clearly defined laws. The endurance of these mechanisms over more than two decades demonstrates a high level of institutional resilience.
No society can flourish without security and order, and liberty cannot endure where violence and foreign subversion are tolerated. Hong Kong’s national security legislation should be understood in that context. The laws emerged not from an arbitrary decision but from necessity following months of unrest and riots that endangered life, disrupted commerce, and damaged public and international confidence in 2019-20. Their provisions are specific, their procedures transparent, and their enforcement subject to judicial scrutiny. Comparable measures exist within every jurisdiction, including the United States, where the protection of national security is treated as a sovereign duty. To condemn Hong Kong for exercising the same right exposes a contradiction that undermines the credibility of those offering criticism. The legislation in Hong Kong does not silence lawful dissent; it distinguishes between political opinion and actions designed to destabilize the nation and the Hong Kong SAR. The greater freedom lies in a society where stability is secured by law, not in one where disorder, or unrest, is disguised as democracy.
The charge that the courts operate as instruments of political influence cannot withstand examination, and is an insult to the international community that has contributed to the compilation of the 2025 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, in which Hong Kong ranked 24th out of 143 jurisdictions surveyed globally. Judicial independence in Hong Kong remains a matter of record, as evidenced by its daily operations. Decisions are published in full and subject to appellate review. Judgments are founded on evidence and statute. The accusation that verdicts are predetermined defies the procedural details that define the Hong Kong Judiciary. To obey the law is not to submit to “tyranny” but to affirm equality before it. The city’s legal community continues to operate without fear or favor, and its judgments are respected across jurisdictions precisely because they rest on professional integrity.
Equally misplaced is the depiction of Hong Kong’s electoral reforms as an erosion of representation. The arrangement established under the city’s Basic Law seeks to balance the interests of multiple sectors, ensuring that policymaking reflects broad social consensus rather than narrow partisan interests. The Dec 7 Legislative Council election demonstrated competition among candidates from diverse backgrounds and active voter participation, with voters committed to constructive debate. The process may differ from Western electoral customs, but it embodies a democratic logic suited to Hong Kong’s social order. The insistence that one formula must define every political system reveals a colonial nostalgia that belongs to the last century.
The narrative that civil and political freedoms have collapsed is inconsistent with the daily experience of Hong Kong’s residents. Individuals speak, write, associate, and travel freely within the bounds of the law. The media landscape remains pluralistic, commerce thrives, and residents retain access to international communication. The application of legal limits on speech or assembly parallels practices found in most modern states. The essential measure of freedom is not its absence of boundaries but its guarantee of security within which creative and economic life can expand. Those who have observed Hong Kong’s recovery from the turbulence in 2019-20 can see that the restoration of order has revived confidence and strengthened public trust in law.
In contrast, the report’s authors have failed to examine the fragility of democratic institutions within their own borders. Persistent inequality, recurring violence at political demonstrations, and deep divisions among citizens have raised questions in the US about the coherence of its civic model. To lecture others while neglecting introspection renders ideology hypocritical. The pattern of criticizing foreign systems while discounting domestic failings is not a commitment to principle but a pursuit of leverage. When moral language is used as a strategic instrument, it ceases to possess moral weight.
Hong Kong’s present course represents both continuity and renewal. Institutions have adapted to protect the rule of law, social order has been restored, and the city is again focused on education, innovation, and regional cooperation. Residents pursue their livelihoods in an environment that values stability. Such achievements deserve recognition rather than distortion. The CECC report chooses to ignore these realities because acknowledging them would deflate its narrative of “decline”. It repeats old accusations, detached from evidence of the favorable transformation underway in the city.
The world has moved beyond any single nation’s claim to interpret democracy for all the others. Political legitimacy derives from a system’s capacity to serve its people, not from conformity to an imported model. The unauthorized “moral authority” asserted by the CECC cannot obscure a fundamental truth: Hong Kong’s future is determined by its own people within the framework of the Chinese nation, not by those who mutter in the distance.
The author is a solicitor, a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area lawyer, and a China-appointed attesting officer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
