#Beijing makes it official: Seeking democracy is treason

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A volunteer holds a QR code for people to scan and vote during primary elections in Hong Kong on July 12.
ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP via Getty Images

Barely weeks after China imposed its new Hong Kong-crackdown law, citizens there courageously showed Beijing what they think of it — by showing up last weekend to an unofficial “opposition primary” among pro-democracy candidates. The Communists’ response: threaten prison for all who voted.

That’s more than 600,000 people who showed up to choose among supporters of the months of demonstrations against Beijing’s efforts to crush the city’s freedoms.

Those protests stopped Hong Kong’s legislature from acting, so the mainland rulers had the puppet national parliament do the job, sitting out of reach in Beijing — in blatant violation of the accord that restored Chinese sovereignty over the city but with a commitment to preserve its citizens’ freedoms.

The new “national security” law effectively criminalizes any resistance to the Chinese Communist Party’s whims, rendering the city’s independent legal system and local laws irrelevant.

Hence the threat to the independent voters. As Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (the Piglet to President Xi Jinping’s Pooh) put it, if the idea was to elect legislators “with the objective of objecting or resisting every policy initiative,” that counts as “subverting the state power” — which means voting could earn you years in prison.

Lester Shum, one of the candidates, called the turnout a sign “Hong Kong people have still not given up.” When they insist that democratic dissent is treason, how can you give up?