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Greg Sheridan

Hong Kong treaty suspension hangs on inescapable logic

Greg Sheridan
A protester holds up a blank paper during a demonstration in a Hong Kong mall on Monday. Picture: Getty Images
A protester holds up a blank paper during a demonstration in a Hong Kong mall on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison is right to suspend the extradition treaty between Australia and Hong Kong.

Australia can now expect a new round of Beijing’s customary bullying and intimidation, with ongoing trade retaliation likely. The Chinese embassy and media have already started the threats.

The government was also right to extend a welcome to Hong Kong students and residents already in Australia, such that none will have to go home against their will, and other Hongkongers can more easily apply to come here.

On the extradition treaty, the situation’s logic is implacable and inescapable.

Beijing has extended its legal reach into Hong Kong, specifically through a new national security law that means people guilty of the most trivial offences in Hong Kong — waving a placard critical of the Beijing government, for example — can be jailed for lengthy periods on national security charges, and taken to mainland China for legal proceedings or prison sentences.

As Morrison said, this means Beijing has effectively ended the “one country, two systems” arrangement with Hong Kong.

It has ended the “high degree of autonomy” Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy until 2047, under the joint Sino-British declaration of 1984.

This joint declaration is a formal international treaty.

China accuses Australia of violating international law

In seeking to impose its authoritarian will on all aspects of Hong Kong life, Beijing has explicitly ­violated a solemn treaty, which ought to give us pause to consider how seriously Beijing takes treaty obligations.

Morrison is manfully trying to walk what may be an impossibly narrow path between doing the right thing and not causing more offence than necessary to Beijing, our biggest trading partner.

He emphasised that he was not telling the Chinese government what to do, he was simply making necessary changes in Australian institutions and policies in response to the changes Beijing had made in how it behaves.

Nothing could better illustrate the change Beijing has brought to its international standing than to compare Morrison’s government with the Turnbull government three years ago.

Then, Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop were passionately, and unsuccessfully, trying to get the Senate to ratify an extradition treaty between Australia and mainland China. That enterprise was foolish even then, and was defeated by the opposition of Labor, some junior coalition backbenchers and Tony Abbott, who made a high-profile intervention.

Our political system determined, correctly, that we couldn’t trust the integrity of the Chinese legal system and an extradition treaty would facilitate Beijing threatening and intimidating the Chinese diaspora community in Australia.

Now the Morrison government has made the same judgment regarding extradition to Hong Kong. It’s not safe, not credible, and it’s likely to be used to intimidate Australians of Hong Kong background.

PM’s visa announcement ‘great for the people of Hong Kong, Australia’

Morrison was if anything modest in the arrangements he announced for visas for Hong Kong residents wanting to stay here. All those now here will be granted automatic extensions to their visas and for almost all, this provides a path to permanent residence.

It was presumably to avoid extra annoyance to Beijing that the government has not called these “safe haven visas”.

However, the government will not be sending anyone back to Hong Kong against their will and can change such visas into permanent residency any time it likes.

For Hongkongers wishing to apply to come to Australia, the process the government announced could have been more generous. It’s academic at the moment because no one can come here right now, anyway.

But Hongkongers who feel oppressed by the Beijing government, and who have a well-grounded fear of persecution, would make excellent immigrants and should be welcome.

Still, you can’t do everything in one day.

The fact the government has advised Australians that if they go to China, they have every chance of being subject to arbitrary arrest was an honest, necessary piece of travel advice, and deeply annoying to Beijing.

It also shows what a strange historic moment we’ve reached when, on the best professional advice, our government feels it necessary to warn citizens of the dangers of visiting our biggest trading partner.

These strange times are full of challenges. There is no precedent about how they should be handled. More trouble ahead, surely.

Read related topics:China Ties

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/hong-kong-treaty-suspension-hangs-on-inescapable-logic/news-story/f85a42d981b251426639a9004f63ea5a