A press release posted on the website of CGTN, a state-run news channel based in Beijing, provides another example of the art of clumsy official lying.
Reporting the sentiments of Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, the release defends certain recent actions of the Hong Kong police by praising what he calls “safeguarding the rule of law.”
The Honk Kong police/Chinese government placed a bounty on the heads of eight pro-democracy activists who once lived in Hong Kong but now live in foreign lands. None has committed any crime; each is being pursued only for protesting tyranny. The government of Britain, to its credit, objects. Zheng Zeguang objects to the objection.
The July 15, 2023 press release, “Chinese ambassador urges UK officials to avoid interference in China’s affairs,” tells us:
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) has published a list of people wanted in connection with national security violations, a move that has been claimed by UK Foreign minister James Cleverly as an attempt to “silence individuals.”
Ambassador Zheng responding, reminded the UK that the police of the Hong Kong SAR issued the arrest warrants in accordance with the law. They are safeguarding the rule of law, as well as the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, which is out of fairness, justice and righteousness, said Zheng.
With the same air of stern confidence, Chinese officials could issue a formal communique that the moon is made of green cheese. All the key terms are lies: “interference,” “national security,” “rule of law,” “safeguarding,” “fairness,” “justice.”
If one is determined to obfuscate—because one’s purposes are indefensible—one may well be inclined to follow the linguistic practice of Humpty Dumpty. Mr. Dumpty told Alice that “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
Zheng Zeguang tells the world that hunting down and punishing anyone who protests the tyranny of China is in accordance with the “rule of law,” “fairness,” and “justice,” etc. If one’s law amounts to a proclamation that “anyone who criticizes the government of China must be stopped and punished in any way we see fit—neither more nor less,” any brutalizing of opponents of the regime’s injustices and oppression is by definition done “in accordance with” that law. A law is simply a “rule of conduct…enforced by a controlling authority” (Merriam-Webster). But a law can be a law without being right or just. Laws may be bad; bad governments often produce bad laws. Zheng Zeguang contends that what China is doing is right because China is doing it and China says that it is right. But if an action is wrong, it does not become right by being called right.
The concept of rule of law cannot be understood in a vacuum. It depends on an understanding of political philosophy, on an understanding of the proper function of government and the rights of individuals. The phrase “rule of law” is variously defined, but it is often regarded as entailing public knowledge of the laws, equal enforcement of them, independent adjudication of them, and consistency of the laws with rights and justice. No government perfectly abides by a reasonable conception of the rule of law. But the government of China is not even trying.
