Dabing Li

Opinion | West’s criticism of national security law exposes its own flawed system of ‘liberal democracy’

US leaders have been quick to bash China rather than cure their own ills, from record numbers of Covid-19 infections to high unemployment and fiscal profligacy. The national security law has now become a convenient scapegoat

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A demonstrator holds up a sign during a “Bar Lives Matter” protest in Austin, Texas. Photo: Bloomberg

Dabing Li

Published: 1:00am, 2 Jul 2020Updated: 4:00am, 2 Jul 2020

When Tang dynasty poet Liu Yuxi returned home after 23 long years, he wrote: “A thousand sails pass by a sunken ship. Spring wakes in full bloom in spite of a lone sick tree.”

On June 30, China enacted the national security law for Hong Kong. On the eve of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, a new chapter began.

For the West and the world of “liberal democracies,” this seems a pivotal event in the annals of history. Their reaction has been pessimistic and negative. The oft-repeated “death of Hong Kong” is recycled again, just like 23 years ago when Hong Kong returned to the motherland.

The West was wrong then, and it is wrong now. This knee-jerk reaction is a symptom of the West’s own long decline.

Take the United States, for example. Covid-19 is still ravaging the country, even as it is being tamed elsewhere. Racial and cultural tensions are tearing American society apart. Politicians traffic in fear, division and grandstanding. Unemployment is high. Money is being printed on overdrive to prop up a stock market that is increasingly divorced from economic reality.

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Yet, US leaders take to China-bashing more enthusiastically than they try to cure their own nation’s many ills. Hong Kong and China’s national security law has become a convenient scapegoat to deflect their own failures.