The hotline, designed to help crack down on potential crimes that endanger national security, will take photo, audio and video submissions through texts and the WeChat messaging app. The police state it will only take submissions that are related to national security, and will not disclose personal details on informers.
Many Hong Kong news outlets have slammed the hotline, saying that encouraging the city's residents to report on each other is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China. The service will undermine freedoms and have a chilling effect on Hong Kong, said pro-democracy lawmaker James To Kun-sun.
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"It will be even harder to talk about politics in public now," said a 20-something office worker. There is concern that the hotline could deepen the rift between the city's pro-democracy and pro-Beijing factions.
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Financial authorities have also begun asking banks to report any transactions that could potentially impact national security, likely in an effort to identify activists through money flows to and from foreign organizations.
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The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with a young man in China who is a member at the local level of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He agreed to speak to the WSWS about what it means to be a member of the CCP. Due to the dangers posed by the repressive Chinese regime, his actual name and details have not been included in the interview with Peter Symonds, the national WSWS editor for the Socialist Equality Party (Australia).
The editor addressed the man saying “You are just one of the 91 million Chinese who are members of the Chinese Communist Party and are only involved at the local workplace level. Your experiences shed some light on the character of the party whose inner political life it deliberately obscures.”
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The young man introduced himself: “I joined the Chinese Communist Party in college. In most cases, people join the party for material interests. If you work within the government, joining the party or not does not make a huge difference. But if you are a party member, you could be promoted to higher positions. If you refuse to join the party, you won’t be promoted.” PS: What does it mean to be a member of the CCP?
M: Mostly participating in workplace meetings. At these meetings, in most cases only leaders would speak. They will pass down to us the gist of the party centre’s political line and instructions from other leaders. There are no discussions among participants. No one has ever raised a question. We never discuss political questions.
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under President Xi the control over free speech has actually been tightened. As for political discussions, I don’t know what it was like before, but now important national policies are still discussed and decided by a few leaders. Ordinary people have no political say on these matters. And that includes ordinary party members.”
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