Hong Kong’s oldest and largest pro-democracy political party is moving to disband as Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the city leaves even moderate opposition groups with no room to operate.

“The message was that the party has to be disbanded or there will be consequences,” said one of them, Yeung Sum, a former Democratic Party chairman.

Fred Li, a former lawmaker, said a Chinese official told him that the party should not remain until the end of this year, when an election will be held.

Founded by liberal lawyers and academics three years before the former British colony’s 1997 handover to China, the Democratic Party had campaigned for universal suffrage and on matters from labor rights to conservation during a period when such issues were openly discussed in the city.

Widely seen as moderates willing to work with Beijing, Democratic Party leaders had spearheaded a significant voting bloc in the city’s legislature and were regularly afforded space to critique local government policy, until mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 ushered in a new and more restrictive political era.

Beijing’s crackdown in the years since, including the prosecution and jailing of pro-democracy leaders, has left the once-influential party rudderless as it contends with sweeping national security legislation and “patriots only” electoral reforms enacted in 2021 that make it nearly impossible for opposition candidates to stand for the city’s legislature.

Democratic Party chairman Lo Kin-hei told a news conference last Sunday that 90% of about 110 party members had voted to delegate power to a committee to start the dissolution process, adding he hoped a final vote would take place in the coming months.

“I hope Hong Kong’s political parties… will continue to work for the people,” Lo said. “We have always hoped to serve the Hong Kong people, and to do things that are good for society.”

The Democrats’ move to disband demonstrates Beijing’s unwillingness to allow even the mildest of dissenting voices to be heard in Hong Kong, say analysts.

John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said the party had “symbolized the promise of some kind of democratic development in Hong Kong, leading to universal suffrage as promised in the Basic Law,” referring to the city’s mini-constitution.

“A dissolution of the party reflects official Hong Kong’s turn away from popular participation, locally accountable government, and increased transparency toward more authoritarian rule,” Burns said.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the Democrats’ move “shows there are no more feasible ways for groups to exist as an opposition party.”

“It’s self-conflicting for the government to suggest that nothing has changed,” he said.

Criticism of the government remains permitted in Hong Kong, “however strong, vigorous or critical” it may be, so long as it is “based on facts,” the spokesperson said. The Hong Kong government would “continue to resolutely discharge the duty of safeguarding national security,” they added.

No space for compromise

The Democrats had enjoyed relative political freedom following Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, even holding more seats than any other party in the mostly pro-Beijing legislature until 2004.

The party’s leaders were often the figureheads of major demonstrations, including an annual June 4 vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre and a well-attended pro-democracy march held every July. (Neither event would be permitted on the Chinese mainland, and both are now effectively banned in Hong Kong).

But support for the Democrats plunged in 2010 after its leaders negotiated directly for universal suffrage with officials from Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong – a move seen as a betrayal by other pro-democracy groups.

The party was then pushed further to the sidelines by the emergence of a new generation of pro-democracy leaders and student activists during months-long protests for universal suffrage in 2014.

However, when anti-government demonstrators returned to Hong Kong’s streets en masse in 2019, the Democrats’ popularity resurged as many of its leaders stood on the front lines of the massive – and sometimes violent – protests that rocked the financial hub.

Later that year, the Democratic Party was the biggest winner in local district council elections. But its participation in the protests also drew the ire of Hong Kong authorities and Beijing, paving the way for its demise.

“The party made mistakes when it failed to draw a clear line between itself and radical separatists calling for Hong Kong’s independence from 2014-2020,” said Burns, from HKU. “Authorities have punished the party, jailing and chasing out Democratic Party leaders.”

Over the past five years, the space for the Democrats to maneuver has been increasingly squeezed by Chinese authorities.

In 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, introducing the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for four main crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

A year later, the Chinese government rewrote Hong Kong’s electoral rules to require candidates to seek nomination from pro-Beijing groups, essentially excluding the opposition from elections. A legislature filled with Beijing loyalists last year unanimously passed a law expanding the scope of national security offenses.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government argued that the electoral changes had enhanced democracy and have repeatedly defended the security laws as restoring order and returning prosperity to the city. But critics say they have curtailed freedoms and had a “chilling effect” on civil society, including independent institutions and the media.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London, said political and social protests seen as challenging state security are “becoming increasingly if not well-nigh impossible.”

“Many other elements of civil rights, including that of speech and organizing political parties have also been severely curtailed,” he added.

Last year, five former Democratic Party lawmakers were among 45 opposition figures sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years after they were found guilty of subversion for taking part in an election primary in 2020.

National security police have also placed HK$1 million ($129,000) bounties on pro-democracy activists who fled overseas, including an Australia-based former Democratic Party lawmaker accused of secession, subversion and collusion with a foreign country.

Meanwhile, the trial of media tycoon and outspoken democracy supporter Jimmy Lai is ongoing, more than four years after he was detained on charges of colluding with foreign forces, which he denies.

The Democratic Party’s announcement last weekend follows the dissolution of almost 100 civil and pro-democracy organizations in Hong Kong in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown.

The party had tried to survive as a civic group in recent years but struggled to raise funds as multiple private venues canceled their events, often at the last minute.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau said the party’s move to disband was “very sad.”

“I don’t know what they are thinking in Beijing. We have demonstrated, not just words, but by action, that we are reasonable. We are willing to talk, to negotiate, to compromise, reach a deal and go forward.”

Canada is heading into federal elections, where Prime Minister Mark Carney is vying for a chance to continue leading the country, as tensions grow with its closest neighbor.

The former central banker’s main competition is Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s Conservative party leader whose political capital has declined as US-Canada relations nosedive amid threats from US President Donald Trump.

Canadians do not vote directly for prime minister – they vote for lawmakers representing political parties in their district or riding. The party with the largest number of lawmakers elected to parliament will form the government, and its leader will become prime minister.

While Carney’s Liberal Party and Poilievre’s Conservative Party are the frontrunners, other major political parties will also be on the ballot, including left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) led by Jagmeet Singh, the Green Party and the exclusively-Quebec-based Bloc Québécois.

Trade war and house prices

Poilievre was the favorite to win when former prime minister Justin Trudeau stepped down last month. But Trump’s steep tariffs on Canada, and threats to its sovereignty, dramatically transformed the race.

Trump’s decision to levy a 25% duty on Canadian steel and aluminum, cars and car parts, and threats to tariff pharmaceuticals and lumber have shaken Canadian businesses. It’s a reality Carney has not sugarcoated, warning of “tough days ahead” with pressure on Canadian employment.

“These tariffs are fundamentally damaging to the American economy and by extension to the global economy,” Carney told a press conference this month after Trump announced sweeping tariffs, which partially spared Canada but sent global markets into chaos.

Canadians are also grappling with the high cost of living, especially an affordable housing crisis – an issue likely to feel the sting of a trade war with the US.

The Ontario Home Builders’ Association warned last month that tariffs and counter-tariffs on steel and aluminum products would likely drive up the costs of construction materials, making building and buying new homes more expensive, worsening the housing affordability issue.

US and Canadian tariffs on automobiles, for example, will make cars more expensive on both sides of the border, says economist Randall Morck, a professor at the University of Alberta’s business school.

“Stock prices have gone down, so everybody is poorer,” he said, adding that this likely reflects investors’ estimates that recession and higher unemployment could be on the horizon.

Finance man versus the career politician

Carney, a political newcomer, has not ruled out continued talks with Trump, but he has been moving to deepen ties with more “reliable” allies. In an unusual move, his first prime ministerial trip abroad was to Europe where he spoke to French and British officials about deepening security, military and economic ties.

While a rookie politician, unlike his challenger, Carney’s decades in finance saw him steering governments through major global crises and periods of upheaval. As governor of the Bank of England, he helped the United Kingdom navigate Brexit – which he said mirrors what can happen to the US in the face of tariffs.

“I have seen this movie before. I know exactly what’s going to happen to them, the Americans are going to get weaker,” he said at a campaign event in Ontario this month.

Many Canadians see Carney as someone well-placed to navigate a trade war with a long-standing ally, experts say.

“In a crisis it’s important to come together and it’s essential to act with purpose and with force. And that’s what we will do,” Carney said earlier this month as he positioned himself as the person to take on the US president.

Tensions with the US have slowed the ascent of Poilievre, a career politician who served as a cabinet member in former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Throughout his campaign he has aimed to appeal to working-class Canadians, painting himself as someone outside the “Ottawa elite” and casting himself as a family man.

Poilievre’s fiery rhetoric about slashing tax and bureaucracy, and his populist “Canada First” policy have won him supporters tired of Liberal rule. But Poilievre now appears to be distancing himself fro comparisons to US President Donald Trump; he has slammed Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st US state, supported reciprocal tariffs and repeatedly declared he is “not MAGA.”

His decades of political experience and modest background – as the son of two schoolteachers – also set him apart from Trump, says Charles-Etienne Beaudry, political science professor at the University of Ottawa and author of “Radio Trump: How he won the first time.”

Experts say Carney’s lead over Poilievre has widened primarily because the ex-banker has been more vocal than his opponent about how exactly Canada will forge trade ties with other countries and organize retaliatory tariffs.

“I expect that [voters] are going to vote for the candidate that they think will minimize the cost of the trade war with the US,” says Morck, the economist, pointing to the level of anti-American sentiment and distrust among Canadians. “I haven’t seen anything like it since the Vietnam war.”

Maintaining a good relationship between the United States and Europe has long been seen as a no-brainer by leaders on both side of the Atlantic. After all, it’s this friendship that has led to decades of peace, stability and prosperity.

And then came US President Donald Trump.

In his second term, Trump and his closest aides have repeatedly expressed a deep disdain for Europe, centered mainly around their belief that the continent is taking advantage of the US when it comes to security and trade.

They say the US has for decades been subsidizing Europe’s inadequate defense spending, while getting slapped with tariffs and trade barriers in return.

But their dislike seems to be at least partly rooted in ideology.

Majda Ruge, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Trump’s foreign policy is an extension of the culture wars that he and his administration are leading against liberalism at home.

“And Europe is considered to be one of the bastions of that liberalism,” she said.

She said Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement has been largely inspired by people’s disappointment with globalization.

Growing frustration with Europe

Few in the Trump administration have shown as much contempt for Europe as Vice President JD Vance.

Just weeks into his tenure, Vance stunned European leaders by using his speech at the Munich Security Conference to berate them over free speech and migration. He went as far as suggesting that the biggest threat to European security wasn’t Russia or China, but “the threat from within,” which he characterized as “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”

He followed that up a wide-ranging interview with British website UnHerd on April 15 where he shared his and the president’s frustration with European leaders.

“The reality is – it’s blunt to say it, but it’s also true – that Europe’s entire security infrastructure, for my entire life, has been subsidized by the United States of America,” he said.

“It’s not in Europe’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States.”

But the extent of his dislike for the continent was laid bare when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group chat of Trump’s top officials on the nongovernment messaging app Signal.

Vance suggested calling off a US attack on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who had been disrupting key international shipping routes for months, because it would help European economies more than it would America’s.

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance said in the chat.

That remark was in line with Trump’s long-held belief that European countries have been able to underspend on defense because they knew the US would step in and bail them out.

He has threatened to take the US out of NATO and questioned Article 5 of the treaty, the principle of collective defense – a key pillar of the alliance that has only been invoked once in its history, after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

Clash over defense spending

Trump made defense spending a major issue when he first became US commander in chief and 22 out of NATO’s then 27 members were spending less than the agreed upon 2% of their GDP on defense.

Things have changed since then – partly because of Trump’s pressure, but mostly because of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which was a major wake-up call for Europe.

In 2024, only eight out of the expanded alliance’s 32 members didn’t meet the target.

And while it is true that the US has invested a lot of money and manpower into Europe’s security, experts say the picture is a lot more nuanced than how Vance and other top Trump lieutenants present it.

“Americans didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts,” Ruge said. “Regardless of the administration, the US has rarely done something on the foreign policy front, which hasn’t been to the benefit of or in line with (the) national interests of the United States.”

Sudha David-Wilp, vice president of external relations and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, agreed with that assessment – and warned that pulling away from the time-tested alliance could end up costing the US.

The US was able to rely on the support of its European allies on a number of occasions, even when it didn’t necessarily benefit their own political standing – such as when they refused to condemn the decision by the US to kill Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, or when they supported the US invasion of Afghanistan and contributed troops to the multinational force there as required by NATO’s Article 5, even though majorities of their citizens opposed it.

“Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Does it need reform? Yes. But by tearing it all down, it could make (the world) more dangerous and riskier for the United States,” David-Wilp said.

US push for European independence

Trump and those close to him have long pushed for the US to pull back from its traditional role as the world’s policeman, warning against America’s involvement in foreign conflicts.

The paradox of this, Ruge said, is that Vance and other “restrainers” are aligned with many European countries who have in the past criticized US interventions abroad.

Vance said as much in the interview with UnHerd, when he suggested that if Europe was a “little more willing to stand up” to the US, it “could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”

Both Germany and France opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion, a stance which greatly angered the Bush administration. The then-Secretary of State Colin Powell threatened France with “consequences” over its decision to stand up to Washington. An anti-French sentiment took hold across the US — with actions like “French fries” being renamed “freedom fries” in establishments around the country.

“If you think about the Signal chat, where they’re going into the action of bombing of Houthis in Yemen and saying ‘we’re going to give the bill to Europeans,’ well, there’s an amount of hypocrisy, because American action – especially in the Middle East and North Africa – has produced huge amounts of liabilities for Europe,” Ruge said.

Scrutiny over security

The US has a vast network of military bases across Europe, with some 80,000 service members deployed there, down from a 20-year peak of 105,000 at the time of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The current number is roughly one fifth of what it used to be during the Cold War.

The strategy of stationing American troops closer to conflict zones dates back to World War II and has proven to be beneficial time and time again.

While different administrations have tinkered with the number of troops and locations of bases, the US has always maintained a significant military presence around the world.

“One can certainly make credible arguments that it’s important to move assets to regions like the Indo-Pacific, but it still makes sense to have a presence in Europe, because having a presence in Europe also helps the United States when it comes to out-of-area conflict,” David-Wilp said.

According to research by the Atlantic Council, it would cost the US taxpayer nearly $70 million more per year to rotate military forces in and out of Europe rather than have them based in Germany and Poland.

The huge investments the US has been making into defense in Europe and elsewhere have also directly benefited the American economy.

Because while Trump and others often make it sound like the US is pouring cash into Europe, and Ukraine in particular, what the US is mostly doing is pouring money into American defense contractors.

“In terms of what the alliance has given to the US, besides all the other benefits, just in terms of the economy – the benefit (the) American economy has drawn from this in terms of weapon sales and weapon production is huge,” Ruge said.

Of the more than $175 billion in aid that the US Congress has appropriated to Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, more than $120 billion has been spent directly with US companies or on US Forces, according to conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.

And according to the Kiel Institute, which monitors aid to Ukraine, European countries have provided even more aid to Ukraine than the US – first by using their own existing arsenals and then by procuring weaponry from Western defense industries. With four out of the top five global defense contractors being American companies, US industry is getting a sizable chunk of this new business.

European unity benefits the US economy

Trump has made his personal contempt for the European Union clear on multiple occasions in recent months. He even complained to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, incorrectly, that the bloc was making it difficult for him to expand his golf resort in Ireland.

Last month, Trump claimed the EU was “formed to screw the United States” when announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

It was a strange suggestion given that the EU would likely not exist if it wasn’t for the post-war push by the US to help form it. President Harry Truman was a great advocate of European unity and his and subsequent US administrations have supported European integration, seeing a united Europe as a more prosperous trade partner and stable ally.

In Trump’s worldview, the US is being “screwed” by the EU because it is running an overall trade deficit with the bloc. But, just like with defense spending, the issue is more complex than Trump might suggest.

The US and the EU have the largest trading relationship in the world, having traded $1.4 trillion worth of goods and services in 2023, according to the latest available official data. And while the US ran a trade deficit with the EU in goods, it had a surplus in services.

The two sides have been balancing on the edge of a trade war after Trump unveiled 25% tariffs on European steel, aluminum and car exports, and 20% “reciprocal” tariffs on all other goods. The EU said it would retaliate but then put a pause on the planned countermeasures after Trump announced he’d temporarily halt the tariffs.

But while a full-blown trade conflict has been avoided for now, trust between the two sides of the Atlantic has been fractured – perhaps irreparably.

Turkey started hastily organized mass trials on Friday to prosecute some of the hundreds of people who took part in the widespread demonstrations over the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the major rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Some 189 people, including journalists, students and activists, were on trial across two overflowing court rooms in Istanbul’s Caglayan justice palace, one of the city’s main courts.

Both courts ruled to split the list of defendants to more manageable numbers after hearing procedural motions by defense lawyers.

Charges against the defendants stem from the protests that erupted after Imamoglu’s arrest on March 19 on corruption allegations — a move critics see as an attempt to sideline a key rival to Erdogan ahead of elections expected to be held in 2028.

At least 1,400 people were arrested during the demonstrations, posing one of the biggest challenges yet to the long rule of Erdogan, who is seeking to extend his presidency.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the trials as politically motivated, citing a lack of evidence and calling the charges incompatible with democratic norms.

A small group of parents and supporters gathered outside the court before the trials to demand justice for students who are among those being prosecuted, holding signs, releasing balloons and chanting “we want justice for our kids.”

“We release these balloons to symbolize their right to freely express themselves, their right to education, and their right to lead free lives,” the group said in a statement.

Eight journalists who were arrested while covering the protests in Istanbul also appeared in court on Friday.

One defense lawyer called for the immediate dismissal of the case and told the court, “The journalists were carrying out their constitutionally protected jobs.”

HRW reviewed the indictments against 650 demonstrators “accused of protest-related offenses,” noting that 120 were charged for assemblies held after an eight-day protest ban expired.

Potential sentences range from six months to five years, yet in some cases the evidence appeared thin. In one case, a rock allegedly held by a protester was cited as a weapon.

Protesters in the capital Ankara were met with police water cannons. In Istanbul, police doused people with pepper spray, and some officers kicked and hit demonstrators after several fireworks and other objects were thrown at riot police near the city’s municipality building, according to Reuters.

Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe director, criticized the trials as “a warning against exercising the rights to peaceful protest or free expression,” and urged prosecutors to drop charges without concrete evidence.

Turkey’s record on assembly rights has long drawn scrutiny, with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issuing over 70 rulings against Ankara since 2010 for disproportionate crackdowns, HRW said.

The Council of Europe has called on Turkey to protect “the right to peaceful protest.”

“The presumption of innocence, the use of pre-trial detention strictly as a measure of last resort and the protection of political expression” must all be guaranteed, the Council said.

Despite this, Erdogan’s government has tightened control, with Freedom House, a US-based nonprofit research organization, labeling Turkey “not free” amid censorship and surveillance laws.

As the trials begin, observers have warned of deepening authoritarianism. With 90% of Turkish media under government influence and journalists routinely targeted, the cases underscore a broader erosion of rights under Erdogan, who has ruled since 2003 and could remain in power until 2029.

Elections are not scheduled until 2028 but would need to come earlier if Erdogan, 71, who has run Turkey for 22 years, wants to run again. Imamoglu leads the president in some polls.