SCMP — National security law: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam demands international respect for the legislation as it is added to city’s Basic Law

During Lam’s video message, she accused foreign governments and politicians who had raised objections to the legislation of double standards.

“All those countries which are pointing their fingers at China have their own national security legislation in place,” she said.

“We can think of no valid reason why China alone should be inhibited from enacting a national security legislation to protect every corner of its territory and all of its nation,” she said.

I think this is right. Having observed the "protests" and "demonstrations" from a distance through the global media, I conclude that the great majority of participants were peaceful. This was reflected in the results of subsequent elections in which the opposition did very well.

A small but significant minority perpetrated violence bordering on a terrorism if not classifiable as terrorism in the interest of subversion of the state. No state would permit this. The problem in Hong Kong is that legislation is not in place to address it at the level it needs to be addressed. The new legislation seeks to remedy that, and so far as I can determine at present, it is within the bounds of internationally accepted standards for a sovereign in defending challenges to its sovereignty.

There is an important distinction to be made in the area of rights and liberties. Human rights and civil liberties include not only individual rights of persons, but the right of the public as a society to protect the security and good order of the collective as a polity.

This is implied in the slogan summarizing liberalism as "liberty, equality, and fraternity." "Liberty" signifies individual rights and liberties. Equality means equality before the law in government under the rule of law rather than the dictates of men and absence of privilege by birth, class, power, wealth, etc. Fraternity signifies solidarity of a people in community as a polity.

This concept is as old as the polis of ancient Greece, to which the West points as the birthplace of democracy. In submitting to the judgement of fellow citizens acting in the capacity of the polis rather than simply as an aggregate of individuals, Socrates accepted the principle of the rule of law as fundamental. Plato makes him quite eloquent about this.

This trifecta of personal liberty, equality of justice, and collective unity in community embodies potentially conflicting interests and individuals versus the polity is one such class of conflicting interests. The US, for example, is now experiencing the results of this conflict of interests coming to a head in terms of rights, liberties, national security, and civil order. People living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

SCMP
National security law: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam demands international respect for the legislation as it is added to city’s Basic Law

See also

Lowering the boom.

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