The Wall Street Journal - 31.07.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wednesday, July 31, 2019 |A19

P

rotesters in Hong Kong

have delivered the most

stunning rebuke to Chi-

nese tyranny since the Ti-

ananmen Square uprising

of 1989. The question now, after

eight weeks of demonstrations, is

whether China’s dictator, President

Xi Jinping, will respond with the

same brute military force used to

crush that democracy movement 30

years ago. Serious observers worry

the backlash is coming.

For Mr. Xi, who took power in

2013, the situation in Hong Kong

presents an immediate threat to his

domestic political legitimacy. State

repression, bolstered by staggering

levels of high-tech surveillance, has

increased under his rule. In China’s

western province of Xinjiang, de-

spite international protest, the re-

gime has for two years been dishing

out torture and forced political in-

doctrination to an estimated one

million Uighur Muslims held in in-

ternment camps. Dealing harshly

with Hong Kong’s protest movement

would remind the city’s residents—

and the rest of China—who’s boss.

Mr. Xi’s main concern is prevent-

ing the protest movement from

spreading to the mainland. Faced

with legislation that would allow

extradition to China, Hong Kong’s

protesters reject the horrors of Bei-

jing’s one-party rule. That senti-

ment also simmers among the 1.4

billion people of the mainland,

where Beijing deploys legions of

censors and security agents to keep

the population under control. Main-

land Chinese may not agree with

the protesters’ methods or even

their goals, but they visit Hong

Kong by the millions every month.

Many are aware that Hong Kong’s

people are defying Beijing and get-

ting away with it.

It’s possible Mr. Xi has lost pa-

tience with the idea of “one country,

two systems.” Under the 1984 Sino-

British Joint Declaration—a treaty

Where Does

Biden Stand

On Cancer

Screening?

By Betsy McCaughey

The Coming Hong Kong Crackdown

deposited with the United Nations—

China promised that Hong Kong

would enjoy “a high degree of au-

tonomy” for 50 years after the

handover in 1997. That declaration

protecting Hong Kongers’ rights and

freedoms officially has 28 years left

to run, but the two systems are ob-

viously incompatible: One is free,

the other isn’t. If Mr. Xi deploys the

People’s Liberation Army to quell

the protests, it would spell the end

of “one country, two systems” in all

but name.

Since the handover, a series of

Chinese-appointed chief executives

in Hong Kong have tried to impose

laws designed to shut people up

and force them to toe the party

line. Hong Kong’s people have no

way to stop this via the ballot box;

Beijing has cheated them of genuine

democracy.

What would prevent Mr. Xi from

ordering a crackdown? Hong Kong

is one of China’s most valuable fi-

nancial assets. British colonial rule

bequeathed Hong Kong a tradition

of free trade and a dependable legal

system, making it the most attrac-

tive business hub in Asia. The city

of 7.5 million has one of the world’s

densest concentration of banks,

which are the main interface be-

tween China’s controlled currency

and the U.S. dollar. Anything that

scares away business, or prompts

the U.S. to remove Hong Kong’s spe-

cial trading status, would hit China

square in the wallet and could spark

domestic political upheaval.

Then there’s the reputational

damage from a potentially mon-

strous spectacle played out on a

world stage. Hong Kong is a global

crossroads crammed with foreign

nationals, including 80,000 Ameri-

cans; the world would raise a fuss if

the People’s Liberation Army

opened fire in the city center.

Mr. Xi’s strategic calculations

may be influenced by the embar-

rassing fact that the protests have

grown even as China tries to tighten

its grip. A young generation of

savvy Hong Kongers is crowdsourc-

ing tactics over the internet, glean-

ing lessons from recent uprisings in

Ukraine and elsewhere. Unfortu-

nately, Beijing’s precedent for deal-

ing with a protest on this scale is

Tiananmen. The most defiant dem-

onstrators for democracy were shot,

jailed or exiled. The millions who

marched or sympathized were ter-

rorized into submission. While the

slaughter of June 4, 1989, horrified

much of the world, for China’s Com-

munist Party it was a success. The

challenge to its power was swept

away. After a brief scolding from

the international community and

the imposition of some short-lived

U.S. sanctions, the world soon

moved on.

Beijing has kept thousands of

troops garrisoned in Hong Kong

since the 1997 handover and is now

laying the propaganda groundwork

for a military crackdown. Last

Wednesday China’s Defense Minis-

try told the press it would be legiti-

mate for Hong Kong’s government

to invite the People’s Liberation

Army to maintain public order. On

Friday China’s foreign ministry

praised the army as “a pillar” of

Hong Kong’s “long-term prosperity

and stability.” Hong Kong’s Chief

Executive Carrie Lam has largely

dropped out of sight, but on Sunday

she visited the Chinese army garri-

son in Hong Kong to attend a gradu-

ation ceremony at a military sum-

mer camp for youths.

If the U.S., Europe or any of the

world’s democracies have a plan to

keep China’s jackboot off Hong

Kong’s throat, now would be the

time to try it out. Abandoning the

freedom-loving people of Hong

Kong in their hour of need would

send Mr. Xi a dangerous message.

He would view it as an invitation to

send the People’s Liberation Army

on its next adventure.

Ms. Rosett is a foreign policy fel-

low with the Independent Women’s

Forum who covered the Tiananmen

demonstrations for the Journal.

By Claudia Rosett

KYLE LAM/BLOOMBERG

Theprotestsarethemost

stunning rebuke to Beijing

since Tiananmen Square.

They may end the same way.

Protesters dodge tear gas in Hong Kong Sunday.

OPINION

Trump’s Bad Immigration Math

T

rump administration officials

have repeatedly argued against

releasing adult asylum seekers

from detention on the ground that

they’re unlikely to show up in court.

“The absentia rates in immigration

court are sky high,” Thomas Homan,

former acting director of Immigration

and Customs Enforcement, told a

House hearing July 12. But as a new

report from the American Immigra-

tion Council shows, the administra-

tion is using the wrong measure. In

fact, over the past decade, 1.97 million

cases have been filed in immigration

court for aliens not held in ICE deten-

tion. In 1.8 million of those cases, at

least one scheduled court hearing has

occurred. Among those, nearly 1.5 mil-

lion showed up to every hearing—an

appearance rate of 83%.

Asylum-seeking families are even

likelier to appear in court. Of families

released from detention from

2001-16, 86% attended every sched-

uled court hearing. Among families

that had lawyers, 97% appeared in

court. That makes sense—the only

way for them to get the legal protec-

tion they need is to show up in court

to argue for it.

The government, however, does

not report immigrants’ appearance

rate. Instead it reports a related fig-

ure called the “in absentia rate”—the

percentage of “completed” cases

closed each year because the person

missed court. Because the penalty for

missing court is an automatic depor-

tation order, these cases are com-

pleted rapidly. As a result, that figure

overemphasizes rapid deportations

for missing court and leaves out the

much larger number of cases that re-

main pending as the immigrant dili-

gently appears for every hearing.

To simplify, imagine 10 people are

scheduled to appear in court one day

and nine show up. The judge issues a

deportation order for the person who

missed court, then deals with the re-

maining cases, finishing one and or-

dering the other eight to return for

another hearing. The appearance rate

for that day is 90%. The in absentia

rate is a mere 50%—one deportation

order divided by two completed cases.

The in absentia rate is further

flawed because the denominator var-

ies based on factors unrelated to

whether asylum seekers appear or

not. If the number of completed cases

declines in a given year, the in absen-

tia rate increases even if the appear-

ance rate remains constant or im-

proves slightly.

Some asylum seekers fail to show

up through no fault of their own, as

demonstrated by a 2018 study by the

Urban Justice Center and the Catholic

Legal Immigration Network. It exam-

ined families ordered deported for

missing court and found that in a sig-

nificant number of cases, government

error was to blame. One family re-

ceived two letters on the same day—

one notifying them of a court date

that had already passed, the other a

deportation order for missing it.

Given that the vast majority of

asylum seekers do appear for court,

the government should focus on en-

suring that those seeking to follow

the rules have a full opportunity to do

so. A good start would be to restore

the Family Case Management Pro-

gram, established in 2016 and ended

in 2017, which achieved a 95% compli-

ance rate by helping families navigate

the court process and building stabil-

ity in their lives during proceedings.

Keeping a family of two in this pro-

gram cost taxpayers $38 a day, vs.

$592 for detention. Even modest ef-

forts like sending text messages be-

fore hearings could help people.

It makes no sense to lock people

up who only want to abide by the law.

The administration should focus in-

stead on helping them do so.

Mr. Reichlin-Melnick is a policy

analyst at the American Immigration

Council.

By Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

‘In absentia’ rates grossly

overstate asylum-seekers’

PUBLISHED SINCE 1889 BY DOW JONES & COMPANY propensity to skip court.

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‘I

f I’m elected president,” Joe
Biden says, “we’re going to
cure cancer.” Mr. Biden has a
personal interest in the disease,
which killed his son Beau in 2015. But
the Obama-Biden administration had
a bad record on screening, the best
way to save patients from cancer.
When Barack Obama was presi-
dent, the U.S. Preventive Services
Task Force—a panel of experts in the
Health and Human Services Depart-
ment, whose advice guides coverage
decisions for both private and gov-
ernment insurance—argued that
screening should be limited to pre-
vent false positives, which the panel
claimed cause distress and unneces-
sary further testing. The task force
also claimed screening leads to over-
treatment of cancers that would oth-
erwise grow slowly. But another re-
sult of less screening is that fewer
cancers are caught early.

During the Obama years, the task
force reversed its earlier recommen-
dations that women in their 40s un-
dergo annual mammograms, and it
recommended against regular use of
the blood test for prostate-specific
antigen. But the most severe impact
has been on lung-cancer patients, al-
most all of whom are diagnosed too
late to be cured.
Routine low-dose computed-to-
mography scans could prevent as
many as 3 in 4 lung-cancer deaths, ac-
cording to Dr. David Yankelevitz, a
professor of radiology at New York’s
Mount Sinai Medical Center. A 2019
study in the American Journal of Pre-
ventive Medicine found that of pa-
tients at high risk because of smoking,
only 4% get the test. Testing them all
would save at least 256,000 patients
who are now afflicted but undiag-
nosed, Dr. Yankelevitz tells me.
In 2011 the National Lung Screen-
ing Trial announced in the New Eng-
land Journal of Medicine that
“screening with the use of low-dose
CT reduces mortality from lung can-
cer” by double digits. In 2013 the task
force recommended screening for
current and former heavy smokers 55
to 80, but only after “shared deci-
sion-making”—counseling with a
physician about false positives and
overtreatment. The share of patients
getting screened hasn’t increased,
and Dr. Daniel Libby, a pulmonologist
at Weill Cornell Medical College, tells
me “shared decision making is partly
to blame.” Many physicians are unfa-
miliar with the data and too busy to
counsel patients.
The task force’s rationale for limit-
ing CT screening is being disproved.
New research, reported in the Jour-
nal of Thoracic Oncology, followed
participants in the National Lung
Screening Trial for an additional de-
cade, and concluded that harms from
overdiagnosis and overtreatment
were exaggerated.
Limits on screening save money, at
least in the short term, and that was
an Obama administration priority. Dr.
Ezekiel Emanuel, a key health adviser,
complained in 2007 that “reasoning
based on cost has been strenuously
resisted” by doctors,” many of whom
“were willing to lie” to insurance com-
panies on patients’ behalf. Mr. Obama
occasionally echoed the theme. If Mr.
Biden is serious about curing cancer,
he should make clear where he stands
on his administration’s efforts to cur-
tail screening, which are costing pa-
tients their lives.

Ms. McCaughey is chairman of Re-
duce Infection Deaths. She served as
lieutenant governor of New York,
1995-99.

Reversing Obama-era

restrictions could save

many thousands of lives.

A Reality Check on ‘Racism’ and Urban Decay

The news media has

spent the past week

trying to rehabili-

tate the reputations

of Baltimore and Al

Sharpton, which is

more evidence that

they’ll try just

about anything to

advance the Demo-

cratic Party’s

Trump-is-a-racist

storyline.

Alas, we could be having a much

more productive debate about why

black-run cities like Baltimore ha-

ven’t produced more black economic

advancement. Or why black politi-

cians like Maryland Rep. Elijah

Cummings, who was re-elected to a

13th term with more than 76% of

the vote in 2018, so routinely skirt

responsibility for the living condi-

tions in their districts. Or whether

there is any significant connection

between black political power and

black prosperity.

Mr. Trump’s Twitter spasms may

eventually turn off enough white

suburban moms to cost him re-elec-

tion, but caution isn’t part of his

repertoire. And when dealing with

political opponents who are ob-

sessed with racism, real or imag-

ined, indifference to whether you

are labeled a racist might even be

an asset. The reality is that much of

the racism that the left complains

about these days has proved under

scrutiny to be imaginary, which is

good news for the country but bad

news for politicians and activists

who thrive on racial division.

The last time most of us thought

about Baltimore was probably 2015,

when residents rioted after a black

suspect died in police custody. A

year earlier, riots had erupted in

Ferguson, Mo., after another black

suspect was shot dead while as-

saulting a police officer. Much was

made of the fact that Ferguson’s

city leaders and police department

were mostly white. A U.S. Justice

Department review of the incident

said that it was “critically important

for law enforcement agencies, and

the Ferguson Police Department in

particular, to strive for broad diver-

sity among officers and civilian

staff.”

But if racial and ethnic diversity

were so essential to preventing po-

lice shootings and subsequent race

riots, what explained the unrest the

following year in Baltimore, which

had a black mayor, a black City

Council majority, a black police

chief and a majority-minority police

force? Is it possible that biased law

enforcement isn’t the problem?

In 2016 Harvard economist Ro-

land Fryer published an empirical

study that examined more than

1,000 police shootings in 10 major

departments nationwide. He con-

cluded that there was no evidence

of racial bias in police shootings and

that blacks are about 24% less likely

“to be shot at by police relative to

whites.” So far, such research has

failed to persuade Colin Kaepernick,

Black Lives Matter activists and

Democratic presidential candidates.

And the political press prioritizes

anecdotal evidence and viral videos

on social media, not hard data. Still,

it’s worth noting that a new aca-

demic study published last week is

broader in scope than Mr. Fryer’s

and backs his findings.

Writing in the journal Proceed-

ings of the National Academy of Sci-

ences, researchers from the Univer-

sity of Maryland and Michigan State

University concluded that racial dis-

parities in police shootings stem

from racial disparities in criminal

behavior and not from police bias.

“We did not find evidence for anti-

Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in

the police use of force across all

shootings, and, if anything, found

anti-White disparities when control-

ling for race-specific crime.”

Many on the political left and in

the media are loath to discuss how

large black-white differences in vio-

lent crime rates result in racially

disparate encounters with police.

But why should anyone be surprised

that young black men are far more

likely than their white peers to be

shot by police when young black

men commit homicides at nearly 10

times the rate of white and Hispanic

young men combined? “One of our

clearest results is that violent crime

rates strongly predict the race of

the person fatally shot,” write the

authors. Moreover, “reducing race-

specific violent crime should be an

effective way to reduce fatal shoot-

ings of Black and Hispanic adults.”

More minority cops might help law

enforcement build trust in certain

communities, but the “data suggest

that increasing racial diversity

would not meaningfully reduce ra-

cial disparity in fatal shootings.”

Minority officers are no less likely

to draw their weapons on minority

suspects.

When liberals decide to grapple

with these realities, we’ll know they

are serious about addressing racial

disparities, never mind fixing the

nation’s Baltimores. But don’t hold

your breath. Mr. Sharpton was a fre-

quent visitor to the Obama White

House, and given the way the peo-

ple on stage Tuesday and Wednes-

day night have lined up to kiss his

ring, chances are that the reverend

will be monetizing racial strife for

years to come. We may be in a ra-

cial holding pattern until the 2020

election. Mr. Trump won’t back

down, and his opponents, if they’re

being honest with themselves, don’t

really want him to.

Disparities in police

shootings aren’t the

product of officers’ bias,

a new study confirms.

UPWARD

MOBILITY

By Jason L.

Riley