evidence: Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. According to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law of the Special Administrative Region, except in matters of defense and foreign affairs, Hong Kong would have a high degree of autonomy. In 2022, China continued to dismantle Hong Kong’s political freedoms and autonomy in violation of these commitments. Amendments to the Basic Law in 2021 fundamentally changed the electoral system to effectively allow Beijing to block participation by political groups of which Beijing disapproved. On May 8, 2022, Hong Kong’s Election Committee selected John Lee, former secretary for security, as the city’s next chief executive. Lee, the sole candidate permitted by Beijing, secured more than 99 percent of the votes in the 1,500-member selection committee, whose members were in turn vetted by the government. Critics termed the election a violation of democratic principles and political pluralism and a major step away from the Basic Law’s stated aim of universal suffrage.