Beijing, Rebuking Canada

"China urges the Canadian side to immediately correct its mistakes and stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China's other internal affairs in any way so as to avoid further damage to China-Canada relations."
"Their attempt to exert pressure on China under the pretext of Hong Kong-related issues is completely against the trend of time and doomed to fail like kicking against the pricks [struggling in vain against something]. All consequences shall be borne by the Canadian side."
Zhao Lijian, spokesman, China Foreign Ministry

This is, of course, the very same China that has invested heavily in building the infrastructure of roads and bridges in other countries of the world, to gain influence and extract concessions with its "One Belt, One Road" trade and diplomacy initiative to gather to China a greater share of the world's raw materials and trade assets, indebting countries that will eventually have to pay off those loans and whose finances will be strained to the limit. The same country whose claims in the East and South China Seas exacerbate relations with its neighbours over contested territory.

This is China, with its investment in other countries' cultural, arts and academic institutions funding their Confucius Institute in colleges and universities internationally to gain traction on spreading Chinese propaganda as a respectable nation admired for its undoubted heritage and linked to the current Communist Party with its penchant for cyber-espionage, gaining state and commercial secrets to advance its own technological reach without expending time, energy and funding to gain its own original knowledge but building on others'.

This is the China that extends its reach abroad, installing spies and handlers for the Chinese Communist Party, to violate freedoms guaranteed the citizens of other countries when it harasses its expatriates with citizenship in Canada, voluntarily foregoing loyalty to the country of their birth where freedoms are denied. This is the China that claims Tibet as its territory, Taiwan as illegal, and Hong Kong as an indivisible part of China in every respect, with no place for democracy to flourish.

Police detain a protester after he was hit with pepper spray during a protest in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay before the annual march on July 1 marking the anniversary of the handover of the city from Britain to China. (Vincent Yu/The Associated Press)

A half-million Hong Kongers have Canadian citizenship or landed immigrant status, and Canada is interested in their welfare as it would be for any of its citizens anywhere, extending an invitation to welcome back those who have returned to Hong Kong only to live through Beijing deciding to relegate its agreement with Great Britain that recognition of Hong Kong's special semi-independent status would be guaranteed for 50 years, deciding that 23 years is enough, and enacting draconian laws on 'treason' that would entrap democracy supporters in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong police arrested more than 300 people on Wednesday, including 10 under China's new national security law, as thousands defied a ban on protests on the anniversary of the city's handover to China. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

Just coincidentally, a professor at Tsinghua University who in 2018 denounced the removal of the two-term limit for China's President Xi, allowing him to remain in office well beyond his present second term (just as autocratic regimes like Russia and Turkey have manipulated for their presidents-for-life) has seen Xu Zhangrun, 57, arrested, taken from his home by 20 police who searched his house and confiscated his computer. "He felt that the country was going backwards and that as a public intellectual, he has the duty to speak up", explained He Weifang, a Peking University law professor, of his colleague Xu.

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau finally found its resolve to join other nations to denounce the new security law imposed on Hong Kong, violating the principle of "one country, two systems", and suspending Canada's extradition agreement with Hong Kong. China, in response, warned its citizens to exercise caution in travelling to Canada, where "frequent violent actions" take place through Canadian law enforcement.

Amid a diplomatic crisis triggered by China's clampdown on Hong Kong, Chinese officials harshly condemned retaliatory moves taken by the UK and Canada