From Hong Kong comes the news that pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has pleaded guilty to further political charges and is facing anywhere from 3 to 10 additional years — and possibly life.
Wong, now 29 years old, has been harassed and arrested by China’s Communist Party (CCP) for years as a result of his support for, well, free thought and assembly. My co-host Michelle Meow and I interviewed Wong in late 2020, and I was very impressed with his intelligence, level-headedness, and determination to improve life for the people around him. Just weeks later, Wong was found guilty of organizing “unlawful assembly” and was sentenced to prison time. Over the next several years, the courts kept adding additional time to his prison term, each time making it look like they were just following the law. But Chinese law was not written to protect the citizens against an out-of-control, all-powerful government; it was written to protect that massive, all-powerful government from peaceful protestors.
His “offenses” are the usual authoritarian garbage thrown at people for daring to suggest that the people should be free. Unlawful assembly, violating an anti-mask rule, participating in a commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, inciting others to take part in unlawful assemblies, and that ol’ nebulous chestnut, “subversion.”
Speaking out for freedom should not be against the law.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi took to the floor of the House of Representatives on Sept. 2 to raise awareness of Joshua Wong and fellow political prisoner Jimmy Lai. She said Wong “led millions of people to the streets of Hong Kong to speak out for democracy and for freedom in Hong Kong — and for the Chinese government to honor its commitment to the Basic Law, which was the foundation of the 1997 transition from Great Britain to Chinese control over Hong Kong. Speaking out for freedom should not be against the law.”
She added that since since the Basic Law, “the Chinese government has passed a national security law that is anything but security. It is a repression law. Under this law, Joshua Wong has pleaded guilty to speaking out for freedom. He said: ‘Yes, I have done that.’ He can be sentenced to life — for speaking out for freedom.”
His latest appearance in court this month was his guilty plea, which was allegedly for “colluding with foreign entities,” which means whatever the CCP wants it to mean. It certainly didn’t mean colluding with the United States, because when Wong sought asylum in the United States in 2020, his plea was reportedly denied by the State Department.
If there’s a possible glimmer of hope in this ongoing effort of the Chinese authorities to capture and grind down anyone who dares to suggest that they’re oppressive, it is that Wong, by pleading guilty, might not get the maximum sentence.
Who is Joshua Wong? He’s a young man who has been involved in protests against the expansion of control over Hong Kong by China’s CCP. Born in the dying days of Britain’s control over the province, Wong has tried to make his country a better place. From the Umbrella Movement to founding a student activist group, he has been a brave voice calling out as China has moved swiftly to snuff out this bit of liberty within its expanded borders. He’s been recognized as an influential young leader by Time and Fortune magazines, but that appears to be the limit of what America can do for him.
Wong was raised in a Christian household and attended a Christian secondary school, and he seems to have taken seriously a lot of things that most people shirk despite their Sunday School lessons, such as a dedication to helping others.
China’s government takes a no-holds-barred approach to crushing any opposition. After all, the dictatorship of the proletariat — even if the proletariat is being ruled by a bunch of very wealthy party officials — is the historically destined leadership of the people, if you believe the claptrap of Marxist true-believers. I don’t, and you shouldn’t either; Joshua Wong, like others in China and elsewhere, is a hero and, far from trying to destroy his country, he is trying to make it better. What positive thing can one say about a government that works so hard to destroy the best of its people?
That’s probably why I roll my eyes whenever the California left treats Angela Davis as some sort of idealist. Just always remember that according to Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Davis, a committed communist, reportedly said of political prisoners under Czechoslovakia’s communist government, “They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.”
It doesn’t matter whether the government that is doing the oppression is right-wing or left-wing. But it always matters that it is trying to crush the very best of its citizens in its grasping effort to be the sole power.
Pelosi told her colleagues, “We must speak out for freedom. We must not let this be ignored. The most horrible form of torture that the Chinese government inflicts on these prisoners is to tell them: ‘Nobody remembers you or why you are here.’”
“We want to be sure that they know we remember them.”
