HONG KONG – "They blindfolded me and capped me, held in isolation, chained and hung by the arms, deprived of sleep, beaten." He was silent for months Simon Cheng. His looked like one of the many cases of news exploded and then vanished into nothingness during these months of protest. In early August, the 29-year-old from Hong Kong, then an employee of the city's British consulate, was arrested on a business trip to Shenzhen, just across the border with China. After a few days, alarmed, family and friends denounce the disappearance and ask for help in London: Simon supports the democracy movement, could be a political prisoner. At that point, Beijing replies that it stopped after meeting a prostitute and releases it after two weeks. Since then nothing, no clarification. But Simon didn't want to be silent, he was just waiting to be safe, abroad, to report the torture suffered by the Chinese police. Two weeks in which the secret services of the communist regime, told the BBC and written in a Facebook post, they accused him of being one of the obscure leaders of the protest and attempted to extract from him, with physical and psychological violence, information on London's involvement in the movement and its leaders. Finally forcing him to make two video confessions, one for "induction into prostitution" and the other for "treason of the homeland".It is a story full of details, some of which are difficult to verify or confirm. His first effect was to open a diplomatic front between England and China. The British foreign ministry has summoned the ambassador of Beijing, expressing "indignation" and asking for an investigation, the Chinese government, as expected, has returned the interference to the sender, saying he was "annoyed and angry" for the attitude of London. But it is mainly in Hong Kong that Simon Cheng's version is raising a fuss. In a day of relative calm after the clashes of the last few days, while dozens of rebels still remain holed up on the Polytechnic campus, the boy's words seem to confirm some terrifying hypotheses circulating among the ranks of the Democrats. For example, that China arbitrarily arrested Hong Kong children who set foot across the border. Cheng claims to have been stopped at the high-speed station in Kowloon West, a highly disputed Chinese customs post in the middle of Hong Kong. And to have seen and heard, during detention, other young fellow citizens kept in custody and interrogated. In the interrogations he would be subjected to hundreds of photos taken by young protesters, asking him to identify them. Not only that, after returning to Hong Kong, suspicious men would continue to follow him, convincing him to leave the city.
There are also many dark points about Cheng and his role. In fact, the boy tells that the British consulate had entrusted him with the task of gathering information on the protest, a strange role for an investment attraction worker, and that after the episode he asked him to resign. In Shenzhen he then met the family of a Chinese friend who sided with the protests and was arrested by the Hong Kong police. As for prostitution, he only says he was in a massage center. In fact, the doubts seem destined to remain such, given that Cheng, who is now in an unspecified "third country" where he applied for asylum, wrote that he will no longer speak. And that Beijing, as always, will be silent or will simply reiterate its version: Simon Cheng has been arrested for prostitution.But that with London is not the only international front opened for Xi Jinping due to the Hong Kong uprising. A second, even more delicate, is with the United States, where yesterday the Senate unanimously approved a law that should protect the freedoms of the former British colony. The law provides for a periodic review of the state of autonomy of the city, to which the maintenance of its privileged commercial relations with the United States would be linked. It would be a powerful instrument of pressure against Beijing, and one more chance for China to shout at foreign interference. But the process is still concluded and it is not certain that Trump, engaged in commercial negotiations with Beijing, wants to put at risk a possible agreement for Hong Kong.
There are also many dark points about Cheng and his role. In fact, the boy tells that the British consulate had entrusted him with the task of gathering information on the protest, a strange role for an investment attraction worker, and that after the episode he asked him to resign. In Shenzhen he then met the family of a Chinese friend who sided with the protests and was arrested by the Hong Kong police. As for prostitution, he only says he was in a massage center. In fact, the doubts seem destined to remain such, given that Cheng, who is now in an unspecified "third country" where he applied for asylum, wrote that he will no longer speak. And that Beijing, as always, will be silent or will simply reiterate its version: Simon Cheng has been arrested for prostitution.But that with London is not the only international front opened for Xi Jinping due to the Hong Kong uprising. A second, even more delicate, is with the United States, where yesterday the Senate unanimously approved a law that should protect the freedoms of the former British colony. The law provides for a periodic review of the state of autonomy of the city, to which the maintenance of its privileged commercial relations with the United States would be linked. It would be a powerful instrument of pressure against Beijing, and one more chance for China to shout at foreign interference. But the process is still concluded and it is not certain that Trump, engaged in commercial negotiations with Beijing, wants to put at risk a possible agreement for Hong Kong.
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Carlo Verdelli
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Carlo Verdelli
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