***NEW op-ed***
Read Hong Kong Watch's Director, Johnny Patterson, explaining in the Financial Times why reforms to the extradition law threaten Hong Kong's reputation:
"Misgivings about the changes have been well documented. The city’s democrats and business groups say that the move potentially jeopardises the city’s “one-country, two-systems” framework and its autonomy from China. A lack of trust in the judicial system in China — and worries that the Hong Kong chief executive will be unable to reject dubious extradition requests — has led to a fear that journalists, activists and Beijing’s political opponents may face arbitrary extradition.
More than 100,000 attended a rally in April. The Hong Kong Bar Association, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the move, and Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, has called the proposals “an assault on Hong Kong’s values, stability and security”.
One of the two activists now living in Germany, Ray Wong, has said that the reason he is publicly disclosing his successful asylum claim is because of concerns about these amendments: “I will never be able to come back if Hong Kong can extradite me back to China once I return,” he said. “It is important for me to speak up as one of the first political refugees of Hong Kong.”
I have conducted a range of interviews behind closed doors, on condition of anonymity, with senior executives at international banks, hedge fund managers and financial analysts, which expose the reasons for the business community's concerns. A managing director at an Asian bank said that business people were “very worried” about the law because, “In China, the legal system is a bit opaque, and the head of businesses have been imprisoned.”
For one hedge fund manager, concerns about the extradition law are a symptom of “booksellers’ syndrome” — a fear among Hong Kong’s elite that the mainland government will treat them in a manner similar to the five Hong Kong booksellers who were abducted and arbitrarily detained in mainland China in 2015, or the tycoon Xiao Jianhua, who was abducted from the Four Seasons Hotel in 2017.
Likewise, a managing director at a major European bank, said: “The extradition law taps into fears of a midnight knock on the door.” A second hedge fund manager said the threat implied by the legislation would affect his ability to forecast Hong Kong’s finance honestly: “If the extradition law is in effect, I cannot be neutral or objective in my financial analysis; I will have to praise the motherland.
If the government of Hong Kong decides not to compromise, dissatisfaction with the proposed amendments may have several implications. First, the amendments could seriously damage Hong Kong’s international reputation. “One country, two systems” is a very successful brand for Hong Kong. It allows the city to be Asia’s global city, with all the privileges and prosperity that entails.
But the brand requires the endorsement of the international community... J Kyle Bass, a hedge fund manager who predicted the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, recently wrote a letter to investors arguing that the extradition law could put Hong Kong’s privileged relationship with the US under threat. One senior executive I spoke to agreed: “The extradition bill could fundamentally derail the integrity of ‘one country, two systems’.”
https://www.ft.com/con…/3ccdba9e-7c9e-11e9-8b5c-33d0560f039c
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