Few politicians in American history are more notorious than Senator Joseph McCarthy, who chaired the United States Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations from 1953 to 1954. He claimed communists and their allies had infiltrated the US government, and mounted a witch hunt against anybody in public life whose views he disliked. In the process, the careers of many fine people were ruined.

However, McCarthy came unstuck when he targeted the US Army. His aggressive bullying of patriotic Americans horrified television audiences. The turning point came when the Army’s  chief counsel, Joseph Welch, confronted him by asking, "Have you no sense of decency?" In 1954, the Senate censured McCarthy for his conduct, and his career was over.

Although many hoped McCarthy's brand of "Reds under the beds" fanaticism had no future in the US Congress, it has since made a comeback. Since its establishment in 2000, the Congressional-Executive Committee on China (CECC) has led anti-China campaigning with a vengeance. Although the US Congress mandated it to monitor and report on “human rights issues” concerning China, it has taken it upon itself to smear China in every possible way. Hence, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government is often targeted, and the “one country, two systems" policy is regularly trashed.

The CECC, unsurprisingly, has become a second home for some of America's most rabid Sinophobes. Its members, for example, sought (in 2018) to have the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to 2014 “Occupy Central” campaign leaders Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang,  despite their convictions for violence (which injured 10 security guards).

In 2022, moreover, they went further and urged then president Joe Biden to sanction Hong Kong judges and prosecutors involved in handling national security cases. This was a deliberate attempt to undermine the SAR's judicial/prosecutorial independence, and demonstrated the CECC's contempt for the rule of law.

If proof was required that the CECC was living in cloud cuckoo land, it accused the SAR's judges of "establishing a de facto parallel legal system where basic procedural rights such as trial by jury and presumption of innocence are routinely violated". It claimed the judges who conducted national security trials had contributed to “weakening Hong Kong’s once venerated rule of law", which could not have been further from the truth.

As objective observers acknowledge, Hong Kong has one of the most professional judiciaries in the Asia-Pacific region. Criminal trials of whatever sort are conducted according to the traditions of the common law world. The presumption of innocence is safeguarded; defendants can challenge the prosecution's case and call their own evidence, prosecutors must prove their allegations, and convictions can only result if guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Anyone aggrieved by a conviction has a right of appeal, as stipulated by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which applies in the SAR. No one knows this better than former media magnate Jimmy Lai Chee-ying. After he was convicted (in separate trials) of organizing an unauthorized assembly and fraud, he successfully challenged both convictions in the Court of Appeal.

Such, however, is the CECC's bigotry that it has no interest in understanding the situation on the ground, let alone in hearing anything positive about Hong Kong.  

For example, the New York-based World Justice Project (WJP) has consistently rated Hong Kong highly in its annual Rule of Law Index (higher than the US), but the CECC has ignored its findings.

The WJP was founded in 2006 as a presidential initiative of the American Bar Association, and became an independent, nonprofit organization in 2009. The Index is currently the world's leading source of original, independent rule of law data, with its conclusions based on detailed country research. It describes accountability, just laws, governmental transparency, and accessible and open justice as the "building blocks for any rule of law system”.

In the latest Index (Oct 28, 2025), Hong Kong was ranked 24th worldwide (out of the 143 places surveyed), and sixth out of the 15 places surveyed in the East Asia and Pacific Region. These results reflected its achievements under the "one country, two systems" policy. By contrast, the US was ranked 27th, with a slew of European Union countries well behind, including Poland (32nd), Italy (34th), and Greece (48th).

In its latest attempt to destabilize the SAR, the CECC introduced (Sept 16) the "Jimmy Lai Hong Kong Political Prisoner Accountability Act of 2026", which again threatened sanctions against Hong Kong over Lai’s detention. As previously, it sought to drum up support for Lai, whose anti-China activities the US supported from the outset. Even though he was convicted of conspiring to collude with external forces to endanger national security (by urging foreign governments, notably the US, to impose sanctions and hostile measures on China and its HKSAR), the CECC still seeks to lionize him.  

Whereas the CECC chair, Senator Dan Sullivan, said Lai was convicted "for exercising his God-given rights and standing up for the people of Hong Kong", the co-chair, Representative Chris Smith, claimed Lai's "politically motivated imprisonment is an affront to free speech and human dignity".

By any yardstick, this grossly misrepresented Lai's situation and shredded whatever remained of the CECC’s credibility. His case had nothing to do with human rights or freedom of speech; it was about protecting Hong Kong from those who wished it ill. Although Lai appealed successfully against two of his other convictions, he chose not to appeal against his national security convictions, which was revelatory. It indicated not only his acceptance of the strength of the case against him, but also his realization that the "one country, two systems" policy would survive no matter what.

Instead, therefore, of trying to destabilize Hong Kong on bogus grounds, the CECC should devote its efforts to legitimate causes. Its members might, for example, seek justice for the 120 schoolchildren killed by US bombing at the Shajareh Tayyebh girls' school in Minab, southern Iran, on Feb 28, 2026. Or else they could investigate the deaths of over 21,000 Palestinian children by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since 2023. They may also wish to know why their government has just approved (Sept 17) the supply of 40,000 one-ton bombs to Israel (and the identity of the intended victims).

In the US, the national debt is ballooning (about $40 trillion in August). At some point, taxpayers will hopefully realize their country can no longer afford the luxury of CECC-type propaganda shows. Like McCarthy, it has no sense of decency, no achievements, and no credibility, and it is high time to administer the last rites.

In the meantime, however much its members resent China's resurgence, the CECC should try to understand that mischief-making over Lai will lead nowhere. With its national security safeguards in place, its rule of law vibrant and its economic prospects bright, Hong Kong's future is secure. Whatever the CECC might attempt, the "one country, two systems" policy will continue to guide its fortunes successfully.

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.