Commentary On April 16, the Hong Kong court officially sentenced key pro-democracy activists who were convicted last month. Most of their sentences are around a year to 18 months in prison. The “crime” for which the people were found guilty was illegal assembly without permission for a large-scale protest in August 2019 that was attended by hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers. The crime appears to have no connection with the Hong Kong National Security Law, but many have linked the trial and conviction of the Hong Kong court with the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As fear is the motivation for much of the CCP’s domestic and foreign aggression, the Chinese regime’s recent behavior in Hong Kong reveals some of its major fears. Economic Decoupling On the world stage, the legitimacy of the communist regime in the past three decades has mainly centered on its …