On BBC R4 “Today”, Victor Gao, Vice President of the Centre for China and Globalization in Beijing, repeatedly insisted that “rule of law” was the prime directive and therefore the protesters in Hong Kong should be condemned by the international community.

There was some push back from the interviewer over the mainland’s erosion of ‘one country two systems’ but I was really hoping they would challenge the integrity of the “rule of law” argument, but they didn’t.

You see, the fact of a law doesn’t make the law worthy of respect. Gandhi proved it. Anne Frank proved it.

“Rule of law” is fine only if the laws themselves are just and good laws that protect and uphold individual rights. Beijing is either incapable of seeing their flawed logic, or pushes it anyway for its own ends.

The events over there are like watching the Berlin wall being rebuilt in slow motion, I’m so glad the people are pushing back. So I stand with the people of Hong Kong who are losing their freedoms to a totalitarian regime with a poor human rights record. The whole point, which Beijing ignored, was that “rule of law” cannot be respected when the law itself is the point of protest. For that Beijing offered no answer, they just keep repeating their demands that you obey it.