Hong Kong Riots: Propagating a one-sided narrative
“Since Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, China has been eroding the rights and freedom of the Hong Kong people. This is the root cause of the unrest.” That has been a recurring theme in western media reports and commentary about riots in Hong Kong that started in the second half of 2019.
So, what has China done to erode the rights and freedom of Hong Kong?
They said that China tried to introduce the security law in 2004 which prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against the Chinese government. They conveniently forgot to mention that China has a legitimate need to disallow Hong Kong to be used as a base to subvert China’s political system and break up its territory.
They said that China tried to introduce the extradition bill in 2019 which will allow Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China. They conveniently forgot to mention that without the extradition law, although Hong Kong is part of China, technically, any criminal wanted by China can just hole up in Hong Kong and they would be out of reach of China’s laws.
They mentioned about how Chinese authorities kidnapped 5 Hong Kong booksellers (when they were outside Hong Kong) just because they sold books that were banned in China. What was seldom mentioned is that these books, which contained gossips, rumours of scandals and tales of intrigue about Chinese top leaders and politics are smuggled into China and sold mainly to mainland Chinese. Whether the contents were true or not, if read widely enough, these books would definitely erode public trust in the Chinese leadership. Kidnapping is wrong, but objective journalism should also highlight the other side of the story, which is, these 5 people were using Hong Kong as a safe base to knowingly defy Chinese laws and undermine the Chinese leadership.
They said that China will not allow Hong Kong to elect it own leader because Beijing insist on pre-approving candidates before they can stand for election to chief executive. What was not highlighted is this: Beijing has already backed down from enacting the security law and extradition law. Now, on top of that, the protesters are demanding that Beijing must welcome whoever they elect as leader, even if such a leader were to turn out to be antagonistic towards Beijing. One has to ask whether such a demand for de-facto independence from China is reasonable.
Hong Kong faces difficult social problems such as a big rich-poor gap and unaffordable housing. Many of the young feel they face a bleak future. The government tried to solve these problems but was unsuccessful. When there are a lot of unhappy people in society, it is understandable that the electorate wants the freedom to choose their own leader whom they hope can give them a better deal. But demanding universal suffrage while rejecting the security law is unreasonable because Beijing’s legitimate national security concern is not addressed. If common sense had prevailed, the pro-democracy politicians and protesters would have realized that showing more goodwill and going the distance to assuage Chinese government’s national security fears would be the wisest strategy to get a positive response from Beijing. In this scenario, Hong Kong will continue to have their freedom as well as the economic benefit of being plugged in to the vast hinterland of mainland China’s vast resources in the long term.
Instead, the pro-democracy politicians and protesters are so blinded by their suspicions and prejudice against the Chinese Communist Party, that they refuse to acknowledge that as far as the rules of one-country-two-system is concerned, Beijing has kept to her end of the bargain. If the one-country-two-system fails, it is because the political actors in Hong Kong are not willing to keep to their end of the bargain.
Any right thinking person would know that continued violence and confrontation will not lead to a good ending for Hong Kong. The protesters are marching towards a precipice of ruin and regret because the longer these young people keep up with the violence, the more difficult it would be for them to return to normal life. Yet some western politicians and media seem to be egging the protesters on in the name of “democracy”, “rights” and “freedom”.
It seems to me that the public opinion shapers and influencers of this age have elevated “democracy”, “rights” and “freedom” to such a high level that it has become the triune god of a new religion.
The dogma of this religion can be summarized as follows:
Any country that is not a democracy is by definition, backward.
The worth of a government is judged by its “democracy” credentials rather than whether it runs the country well.
A government that is officially communist must necessarily be evil.
In the name of democracy, rights and freedom, all bad behaviour can be condoned. These include rampant vandalism of public installations, destroying the properties of businesses seen as friendly to the opposing side; attacking the police; attacking people who don’t agree with them; disrupting traffic and public services as a means of political coercion; creating fake news and spreading rumours against the police and authorities to sway public opinion; desecration of the national flag; destroying subway stations because the train service will not do the protesters’ bidding.
The pent-up frustration of youth must be fed with a steady diet of political rhetoric that frame all social, economic and political ills regardless as a “lack of democratic freedom”.
The struggle for “democracy”, “rights” and “freedom” have the highest priority. The be-all and end-all. Common sense, facts, and moral imperatives must take a back seat.
The sad truth is that the young protesters in Hong Kong has bought in to this dogma. They see themselves as superior and thus refuse to acknowledge that they are part of China. So, they view every attempt by Beijing to inculcate in them a sense of national pride and identity with China, as brainwashing and resist it vigorously. Yet, if they had step back to reflect on their unreasonable demands, bad behaviour and skewed perspective, they would have realized that brainwashing is not the exclusive domain of the communist.
