China’s economic power cannot come at the expense of freedom

On this Memorial Day weekend, as we reflect on the brave actions of those who died in battle so that we might live free, it’s also fitting for us to consider the moral causes of our time. One such cause is playing out across the Pacific in the metropolis called Hong Kong.

If that island city seems like a distant land worthy only of someone else’s concern, that might be because it is easy to lose perspective while sitting inside our own borders. The truth is that our economic strength, along with the future of a peace we can thrive in, are tied to a contest of ideas on the world’s stage. And within that contest, we have ceded much to China in recent decades without gaining the ground we once thought possible.

China was granted admission to the World Trade Organization in the waning days of the Clinton administration under a similar belief that dominated the thinking of the free world when China was handed control of Hong Kong just a few days before July 4, 1997. That belief was that as China modernized and found prosperity by opening its economy, its political system would follow along and open up as well. Back in those heady days, some believed that “one country, two systems” would inevitably lead toward the dominance of the Hong Kong system — a system moving toward real democracy.