NEW DELHI: “Hong Kong is the model for how China can change the world. If Beijing can completely reign in a once free city like Hong Kong. They can also change the free world order,” says Victoria Tin-bor Hui, Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. “This is really at the heart of the lesson the rest of the world should learn. Hong Kong is not just a domestic issue. It really has global ramifications,” the native from Hong Kong, who also regularly writes on the city’s democracy movement adds. Speaking to StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi on the sweeping arrests of over 50 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, she says calls to scrap the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement on January 30, 2020 “are a good point” since China is saying if the U.S. decouples economically, “we go to Europe”. She argues Europe needs to understand, ” if it thinks it can make progress in China, over time, it has to understand, they take your technology, they take over your markets, they take over your ideas, and then abandon you when you are no longer useful.” With the India-China Ladakh faceoff over nine months old now, the author of ‘War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe’ points out it’s in New Delhi’s “self-interest to take a strong stand against China’s oppression in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.” Ms Hui points out, “there were regrets after the 1962 war on not taking a stronger stand on the Tibetan government, so now also India should make sure it doesn’t have any regrets.”
