A Hong Kong businessman who used to invest heavily in China is now in Washington. He is pushing to designate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a criminal organization.
When the Chinese Communist Party said they would reform and open China in the 1980s, Hong Kong businessman Elmer Yuen was among the first to believe that the CCP truly meant to change.
Yuen invested heavily in southern China, thinking he could be part of the force to push China into a free economy and open society.
He said many high-level officials visited his digital watch factories at the time, including the father of the current Communist leader Xi Jinping.
Now Yuen is now doing everything he can to get away from the Chinese regime.
This change started last year when he witnessed the police brutality against protesters, many of whom were teenagers.
“They would be beaten, terrorized, and the girls, the pretty ones are being sexually abused. Some have been murdered and so on. It’s terrible,” Yuen said. “But it’s not the deed of the Hong Kong police, it’s really the military, police from mainland China dressed in Hong Kong police uniform.”
He said students with arrest records for their protests in Hong Kong can be denied entry into schools and turned away from good jobs. That’s why he is now meeting with U.S. lawmakers, asking for visas for the young protesters so they can come to study at U.S. universities.
Meanwhile, Yuen is calling for stronger sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party to cut off their access to U.S. dollars.
“We need to turn off the tap of U.S. dollars in and out of Hong Kong, and later in and out of mainland China,” Yuen said.
“That is the only way they understand.”
He also advocated a referendum to determine Hong Kong’s fate. He said since Beijing hasn’t fulfilled its promise of Hong Kong’s freedom under the joint declaration, the future of Hong Kong should be decided by the Hongkongers themselves.
“We want them to give the sovereignty back to the people of Hong Kong.”
Yuen’s advocacy comes at personal cost. Before publicly speaking against the CCP, he already closed all of his businesses in mainland China.
“I have six children and four grandchildren. And I don’t want them to live under a totalitarian regime. So I told all my friends. Our business is closing. I’m not going to work for this Communist regime,” Yuen said.
His safety is also at stake. Beijing is currently pushing the law to criminalize activities deemed as security threats by the CCP.
“They can say that I’m colluding with foreign governments, trying to split the country and all kinds of, you know, the Communist accusations. It means nothing to me, but that’s what they will say. Once the law is passed, they can arrest me, and do all kinds of things,” he said.
He said his family will need to escape Hong Kong if Beijing brings the new National security law into force.
“If it’s really terrible, they will have to run, they will have to leave. But somebody has to speak out. If they can keep doing this, and later on, you can see with this One Belt One Road, every country will suffer the same as Hong Kong. No difference.”
Yuen is trying to persuade the United States to designate the CCP as a criminal organization, saying it’s the most effective sanction to deter its aggression.
“If you really want to get to the bottom of this, people have to work and get rid of the CCP. If they are there, they will come back, they are very deceitful. So we need to, the whole world needs to get together and get rid of the CCP,” Yuen said.
“So sanctions, everything, do everything, decouple with them, so they have to be like the USSR, they have to give up Communism.”