Nathan Law and Rahima Mahmut
As world leaders gather in Rome this weekend for the G-20, their focus will understandably be post-COVID-19 recovery and climate change. These are undeniable priorities, but there is a third challenge facing the world that is the elephant in the room: The threat to freedom and in particular the rise of authoritarianism led by the Chinese Communist Party.
Over the past decade, the regime in Beijing has intensified its repression at home and increased its aggression abroad. Under Xi Jinping, China’s dictatorship has relentlessly cracked down on all dissent, closing down whatever limited space previously existed for civil society, citizen journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders, and religious believers. In the early days of COVID-19, the regime repressed the truth instead of the virus, silencing whistleblowers and failing to alert the World Health Organization in a timely manner, in breach of its international obligations. It has completely dismantled Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy, in violation of an international treaty, and is credibly accused by a growing number of governments, parliaments, lawyers, and academics of committing genocide against the Uyghurs. Repression in Tibet has intensified, and in recent weeks Beijing has accelerated its threats to Taiwan, with an unprecedented number of fighter jet incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone. It has proven what a mendacious, cruel, and dangerous totalitarian regime it is.