This 2019 legislation would have allowed extradition to the People's Republic of China. Many residents viewed this as a subversion of Hong Kong's semi-autonomous political system, leading to large-scale protests, political unrest and a police crackdown. It also prompted Beijing's further direct intervention in Hong Kong's governance.

For the Chinese Communist Party, this organization's support of protesters and alleged collusion with foreign forces violated the party-mandated national security law. This law has since been applied retroactively.

A retired bishop of the Hong Kong Diocese, Cardinal Zen has long supported Hong Kong protesters, critiqued Beijing and criticized the Vatican's rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese Catholics see the arrest as an attempt to intimidate and prevent activism among Hong Kong's Catholic community.

To understand why the Chinese Communist Party would feel intimidated by a 90-year-old man and threaten him with life in prison, it is important to go beyond narrow, concrete effects - such as a cowed Catholic community - and identify the principles held by the leadership. As a former military diplomat currently researching the link between philosophy and foreign policy, I argue that Cardinal Zen's threat to the Chinese Communist Party lies not in his support for democratic reform, but as a competing source of political authority.

The party's morality of hierarchy

The Chinese Communist Party leadership continues to be shaped by the principles of classical Chinese philosophy. Despite official condemnation during the Mao years, the party has more recently tried to bolster the foundations of classical Chinese thought to legitimize its own rule.

During a 1997 speech at Harvard University, Jiang Zemin - then the general secretary of the party - praised classical Chinese thought and tied it to contemporary values and the state's development. Today, General Secretary Xi Jinping routinely mentions classical philosophy in his speeches and noted at the 19th National Congress that the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics will build upon Chinese culture's traditional vision, concepts, values and moral norms.

Classical Chinese ethics begin with the existential centrality of the family. Fan Ruiping, a researcher in Confucian ethics at the City University of Hong Kong, notes Confucianism sees the family as the basic structure of human existence, not simply a social institution. Thus, the family becomes the standard against which behavior is judged. For example, to protect the family, Confucius argues it is moral for a son to hide the misconduct of his father.

According to the Yongle Emperor, an emperor who ruled in the 15th century, the entire world is a single family. Within this system, one's position is defined by one's role, grounded in the five Confucian relationships: ruler to subject, father to son, husband to wife, elder brother to younger brother, and friend to friend. Each of these is both reciprocal and hierarchical. The moral individual conforms to the role one fills in society and treats others according to theirs.

Even in contemporary Chinese society, friends treat each other as elder and younger siblings, such that in any situation there is a hierarchical relationship - an older friend is addressed as "elder brother" or "elder sister." In calling another "elder brother," one's own position in that reciprocal relationship - "younger" - becomes obvious.

Through identification of the family as the moral standard and its extension throughout society based on the five relationships, Confucianism views a moral society as a unified family, ordered hierarchically. At the top of the hierarchy sits the emperor, whose relationship with subjects mirrors that between father and son. One serves the rulers as one would serve one's father or elder brother.

In this view, society is well organized when each person fills the assigned role, paying appropriate deference to those above and acting benevolently toward those below. As Confucius stated, "The ruler is the ruler; the minister is minister; the father is father; and the son is son. That is government."

According to Confucianism, order, stability and prosperity are maintained when all subjects fill their proper roles. The danger of ignoring this lesson was highlighted by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao Zedong used students to attack those in the party who opposed him. It was also evident in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when the party allowed the students to develop moral authority and had to resort to military force to crush peaceful student protests. The consequences of losing control was made stark two years later when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Cardinal Zen and challenge to hierarchy

According to its moral principles, the party can tolerate no competition for authority, and has a long history of eliminating those who present a challenge to the party's position. For example, following the 1956-57 Hundred Flowers Campaign that encouraged engagement from intellectuals, Mao Zedong used the Anti-Rightist Campaign to eliminate their growing authority. This campaign sought to refute anti-regime commentary made by intellectuals, punishing about 550,000 of them, many with reform through labor.

More recently, Xi Jinping has used an anti-corruption drive to eliminate intra-party challenges to his authority by purging prominent figures, such as Zhou Yongkang, retired public security chief and former member of the Politburo Standing Committee. In Hong Kong, the national security law has been used to charge publisher and democracy activist Jimmy Lai, whose media holdings regularly criticize the Hong Kong and Chinese Communist Party leadership.

The principle of hierarchy can also be used to understand and predict how events can unfold. For example, if Cardinal Zen dies in custody, he could become a martyr of the protest movement - hardly ideal for the Chinese Communist Party. Still, the leadership's philosophy suggests it would be even worse for the party to let Zen continue his activism and become a more active threat to its moral and political monopoly.

Additionally, arresting a cardinal could disrupt ties with the Vatican. However, as political scientist Lawrence Reardon demonstrates, since 1949 the party's chief concern in relations with the Vatican has been whether the pope or the party appoints bishops within the People's Republic of China. In other words, who sits atop the Catholic hierarchy within the People's Republic of China is more important than anything else the party gains through relations with the Vatican.

To remain at the pinnacle of China's moral hierarchy, the party will need to remove alternative sources of authority. Through his criticism of the party and the Vatican, Cardinal Zen has shown the potential of transforming into a political leader in his own right.

As a possible alternative source of authority, Cardinal Zen has become the latest victim of the party's moral hierarchy; he will not be the last.

• Scott D. McDonald is a Non-resident Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies; he is also a PhD Candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.
• Published with permission of Religion News Service

The statement refers to the Security Police's arrest of the 90-year old in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Hours later, Zen was released on bail.

He and three of four other trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund were arrested. (The fourth is already in jail.)

Zen, cultural studies scholar Hui Po-keung, barrister Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee and gay rights activist and pop singer Denise Ho Wan-see are are suspected of:

"Making requests of foreign or overseas agencies, imposing sanctions on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (and) endangering national security," according to a Police statement.

In 2020, a sweeping National Security Law came into force, criminalising previously protected civil liberties under the headings of "sedition" and "foreign collusion".

The law crushes dissent and can carry up to life in jail.

Zen is an outspoken supporter of the pro-democracy movement.

Before the law's implementation, many Catholics, including Zen, warned that it could be used to silence the Church in Hong Kong.

The Fund

The 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was set up to help 2019 pro-democracy protests pay legal and medical fees. The protests were squashed by security forces.

The Fund was disbanded last year after the national security police ordered it to share operational details.

This is just the beginning.

A police statement says those arrested had been ordered to surrender their travel documents and would be released on bail.

Further arrests are pending, it warns.

Condemnation for the arrests has come quickly

Benedict Rogers, who founded NGO Hong Kong Watch and is a convert to Catholicism, says: "Today's arrests signal beyond a doubt that Beijing intends to intensify its crackdown on basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

"We urge the international community to shine a light on this brutal crackdown and call for the immediate release of these activists."

The cross-party All-Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief tweeted "This is yet another example of China's increasing restrictions of fundamental human rights."

David Alton, an independent member of the House of Lords, described the cardinal's arrest as "an act of outrageous intimidation."

Earlier this week, former security chief John Lee was named as Hong Kong's next chief executive, succeeding Carrie Lam,.

Like Lam, Lee is a baptised Catholic.

The Hong Kong Catholic diocese also issued a statement on the arrest of Zen, a leading figure in the organisation, for the first time on Thursday afternoon.

"The Catholic diocese of Hong Kong is extremely concerned about the condition and safety of Cardinal Joseph Zen and we are offering our special prayers for him," it said.

The diocese added that it had always upheld the rule of law and trusted it would "continue enjoying religious freedom in Hong Kong under the Basic Law" in the future.

"We urge the Hong Kong police and the judicial authorities to handle Cardinal Zen's case in accordance with justice, taking into consideration our concrete human situation," it added, without elaborating on what situation it was referring to.

Source

• The Standard
• Catholic News Agency
• Catholic News Agency
• AP News
• The Wall Street Journal
• South China Morning Post
• Image:UCA News