Lord Powell’s Words of Honesty on Hong Kong
Here are some blunt words from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s private secretary Lord Powell on the Hong Kong protests (although the last sentence is kind of a cop out):
The protesters in Hong Kong are “unrealistic” and should enjoy the freedoms they already have, said a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher.
Lord Powell, who served as private secretary to then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when Britain agreed to return Hong Kong to China, said he did not believe the protest would make a change.
“The position about elections has been clear since the law was published in 1991 and I don’t believe for one moment that Chinese are going to change that basic position,” Powell told British BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.
“Hong Kong has always been part of China,” Powell said. “We rented for a while and we didn’t introduce democracy… and one reason we didn’t is because we knew it was eventually going back to China and it would have been far worse to introduce full democracy and then taken it away from them.”
– The Standard (Hong Kong)
Mainlanders Not Sympathetic With the Hong Kong Protests: NPR
This report by US’s National Public Radio generally hits the mark but it is wrong that mainland Chinese don’t know much about the Hong Kong protests. It’s been headline news on all channels, central and regional, for many days (although it wasn’t reported right from the get-go).
This author visited Hong Kong just as Occupy Central tried to storm government offices two weeks ago. Hong Kong’s standard of living is the envy of many on the mainland. While their apartments and condos may be tiny (and in some cases shabby) by mainland standards (due to Hong Kong’s outrageously expensive real estate market), its markets and stores are stocked with the best meats, produce, fruits, and internationally made products. Its public transit system is very efficient and relatively inexpensive given Hong Kong’s cost of living, and its hospitals, schools, and public services are also top rate.
Mainlanders often think Hong Kongers take their standard of living for granted and demand too much from both the central and SAR authorities. Hong Kongers, on the other hand, hold their mainland cousins in contempt, seeing them as uncouth country bumpkins who lack morals and are fixated with shopping. Yet, Hong Kongers needn’t be reminded that many of them hailed from the mainland and not so long ago, they were also unsophisticated ‘locals’ who couldn’t speak a word in Mandarin, let alone English.
So, Hong Kongers, cherish what you have and seek political reform incrementally, is the message from mainlanders.
This story can be heard at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/10/06/354088313/on-chinas-mainland-a-less-charitable-take-on-hong-kongs-protests?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=world
Guancha: The Protestors and Mr Martin Lee Are Misleading the Public
This editorial by the Guancha Syndicate accurately and thoroughly explains Article 45 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law that brings universal suffrage to the SAR in 2017. Bravo Guancha.
As for the students, Occupy Central, Mr Martin Lee, Ms Anson Chan and the rest of the ‘opposition’, well…., it serves their purposes to mislead.
HONG KONG – As protests are continuing in Hong Kong and the Western media are busy engaging in an orgy of throwing mud onto China, Martin Lee, the 76-year-old poster boy of Hong Kong opposition, has not disappointed his supporters in the West. In an article titled Hong Kong’s Great Test in The New York Times, Mr. Lee repeated many inaccurate claims and even lies on the situation in Hong Kong.
Leaving aside whether the “umbrella” protestors are as peaceful and unrowdy as he claims in his article, let’s go to the heart of the matter: the nomination rules for the 2017 election of a new Hong Kong Chief Executive
The purported rationale for the current protests in Hong Kong is summarized by Mr. Lee this way:
“The people of Hong Kong have waited for decades for China to honor its promise that we would rule our city with a ‘high degree of autonomy.’ This commitment was made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty registered at the United Nations – and applauded by the world when it was announced. China’s determination to ignore its promises and to control the election of Hong Kong’s next chief executive has created this dangerous climate.”
“Britain signed the Joint Declaration with Beijing and must act now that it is being violated,” Mr. Lee pleads.
All is fair and well except that he is beating up a straw man he created. Let’s be absolutely clear on one basic point: Despite what Mr. Lee and the protesters have been crying out so loud China has not violated the Joint Declaration at all.
Since the current row focuses on “universal suffrage” – the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive – it is crucial to turn to the Joint Declaration and see what has actually been stipulated in the text. According to Article 3 (4), it states:
The chief executive will be appointed by the Central People’s Government on the basis of the results of elections or consultations to be held locally.
That’s all. That’s what was promised by China and accepted by Britain 30 years ago in the “international treaty” referred by Mr. Lee. No matter how hard one may try to stretch the definition of this clause, or one’s imagination, it’s impossible to claim that China has not honored this obligation.
During the 155 years of colonial rule, all the 28 British governors were appointed by London with no involvement from the Chinese population in Hong Kong. The term “universal suffrage” didn’t exist in the dictionary of the British colonialists. The notion of “universal suffrage,” nowhere to be found in the Joint Declaration either, was first introduced in the Basic Law, promulgated by China in 1990 to be put into effect when Hong Kong became a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997. According to Article 45, it states:
The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People’s Government.
The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.
Hong Kong’s mini-constitution has stipulated very clearly that for universal suffrage as the ultimate aim to be materialized, a number of criteria have to be fulfilled: it has to look into the “actual situation,” to follow the “principle of gradual and orderly progress,” and to nominate candidates by a “nomination committee.”
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, in fact just reconfirmed in late August that Hong Kong could elect its leader by “universal suffrage” – more than five million voters could participate in the “one man, one vote” election as early as 2017.
However, the protesters, supported by Mr. Lee, ignore the above legal requirements and demand “civic nomination” – candidates that can be nominated by anyone or any party, instead of by a nomination committee as stipulated in the Basic Law. Since they refused to play by the rules and couldn’t get what they unreasonably demanded, they launched the Occupy movement to disrupt the whole society. This is a blatant disregard of the law.
Mr. Lee, a long-time lawyer, should have known better than anyone else. If he really cares about the rule of law, a pillar of Hong Kong’s core values he himself cites, he should immediately call on the protesters to pack and go home.
This editorial was published in the Huffington Post; its Chinese version is published in www.guancha.cn.
US Political Infuence Among Young Hong Kong Activists ( Part I)
Due to the interest in the Wen Wei Po article on money and foreign support for the student protests and Occupy Central mentioned extensively in a previous post, this author has taken the liberty of translating a major report (among many) circulating the Chinese language Internet that more or less covers the same topic. But because it is rather lengthy, the account has been divided into parts which are excerpted and not verbatim translated.
US HK Consulate officials and intelligence officers recently met with HK student representatives to discuss strike action.
Nearly two weeks ago, Hong Kong’s Chinese language newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that on September 16th, the Civic Party English Group and the advocacy group Hong Kong 2020 headed by Anson Chan disclosed details of a meeting held on September 5th. Dan Garrett, a US Hong Kong Consulate General official and a speaker at the meeting, addressed the attendees that, “Washington wants efforts to promote civil and social movements for democratic demands to continue, especially for youths to take up pioneering roles”….
He further said that the US must firmly back the students “(and) protect student leaders, including providing them with opportunities to study and reside abroad”. The Civic Party later issued a statement denying those remarks. Mr Garrett has been pursuing a PhD degree at the City University in Hong Kong since 2011. He had been involved in intelligence work in various US government departments and capacities for nearly 30 years. Before coming to Hong Kong, he headed up a department in the US Department of Defense; i.e., he was a “senior spy”.
Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po recently reported, “the Hong Kong-America Center last November replaced former Director Xia Long (Cantonese phonetics?) with Morton Holbrook, (Chinese name Hou Rukai), mentor to US Consul- General Clifford Hart (Chinese name Xia Qianfu) and who’ve had a close relationship since working together in the China Affairs Office at the US State Department…Holbrook assumed the directorship of the Hong Kong-America Center three months after Mr Hart took office. Clearly, Mr Hart is aiding Mr Holbrook in carrying out US policy in Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong Basic Law Committee member Mr Lau Nai Keung (phonetics?) indicated that Mr Holbrook is a veteran of the United States Intelligence Agency (USIA) lacking any academic credentials and yet the most recent preoccupation of the Hong Kong-America Center has been to encourage student demonstrations.
The “Smell of Hong Kong” Facebook account recently revealed “the Hong Kong-America Center had held a two-day and one night workshop last March 15-16 to openly train students to become the ‘backbone’ of Occupy Central…these tactics are sufficient to show that substantive interventions by the Americans have increased sharply, even to the extent of giving Occupy Central their full support”.
Bauhinia magazine also disclosed last April that participants at the “workshop” were actually politicians from various parties, international scholars, and ‘mysterious’ politicos lecturing and teaching students about “negotiation strategies” in dealing with large-scale protests and in drawing the red line and position that cannot be crossed.”
Bauhinia stated bluntly: “Ostensibly, the Hong Kong-America Center is a non-profit university alliance institution, but actually it can really rely on US Consulate General in Hong Kong for support”. Mr Lau added that the recent gathering of Messrs Holbrook, Hart, and former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (Dan Garrett’s former boss) and close associate of Next Media Group Chairman Jimmy Lai Chee-ying in Hong Kong , is hardly an accident, most likely to help galvanize Hong Kong’s opposition.
New Territories Association Chairman Chan Yong (phonetics?) commented the Hong Kong-America Center, from the nature of its work, projects the image that the US wants to transplant the Eastern European experience (of colour revolutions) to Hong Kong and seek to interfere in its internal affairs. I hope that the people can see their true colors. Rong Yong Chi (phonetics?), founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Professionals and Senior Executives Association, also remarked that available information indicates external forces are intervening in political reform in Hong Kong and it is not as simple and clear-cut as young people think.
Singapore FM: Western Press Biased Against China on HK Protests
Couldn’t agree more with Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam’s assessment:
There has been much anti-China bias in Western media’s reporting on Hong Kong’s situation, said Singapore’s foreign minister K. Shanmugam, as he sought to offer another perspective on the current stand-off between Occupy Central protesters and the authorities that is now entering its eighth day.
Speaking to Lianhe Zaobao in an interview published on Saturday, Shanmugam said that western media reports have made Beijing out to be “denying democracy” and acting to infringe on freedoms that have made Hong Kong so successful.
The truth, he said, is that Hong Kong did not have democracy during 150 years of British rule.
Beijing’s proposal for Hong Kongers to elect their leader from a vetted list – what the tens of thousands of protesters in Hong Kong are currently amassed against – is actually much more than what the British had ever offered.
Before the handover to China in 1997, neither the British rulers nor the Hong Kong media thought Hong Kong needed democracy, he pointed out; universal suffrage was also not included in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, the agreement that cemented the terms of the handover.
“The Western media does not report these facts,” he said.
….
Shanmugam said that it must be asked if the average Hong Konger is prepared for the trade-offs of a protracted stand-off with Beijing.
“There needs to be clear understanding that China has acted in accordance with the Basic Law,” he said, referring to Hong Kong’s mini Constitution that enshrines the “one country, two systems” principle.
“If Hong Kongers want a change from the Basic Law – they have to recognize that Hong Kong is part of China, and there are some things China will accept, and some things which are red lines for China.”
“And there needs to be a clear understanding of Hong Kong’s extreme reliance on China for jobs and (its) livelihood,” he said, adding: “There needs to be a clear understanding of China’s largesse towards Hong Kong even as an anti-China mood is stoked up.”
– The Straits Times
Hong Kong Students: Don’t Depict Our Protests as a ‘Revolution’
Striking Hong Kong students are peeved that the foreign press keeps on ascribing the word ‘revolution’ to their cause by calling it a ‘Umbrella Revolution’ or a variant of ‘colour revolution’. While a Washington Post piece tries to convey their frustrations, the students are themselves misleading the public by saying that they’re fighting for ‘democracy’.
What needs to be clarified is that 2017 will be universal suffrage for the Chief Executive so Hong Kong residents already have ‘democracy’. The bone of contention is the threshold at which the nominating committee approves of candidates. The protestors want a very low one so that virtually anyone can take a run but the authorities want a higher one. That’s the crux of the issue, NOT whether Hong Kong practices ‘one man, one vote’ in 2017.
So, as the students shout, stop calling it a ‘revolution’!.
The Washington Post report can be seen at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/04/hong-kongs-students-want-you-to-stop-calling-their-protest-a-revolution/
Britain Has Invaded 9 of 10 Countries Around the World
Right after Occupy Central paralyzed the famous Hong Kong shopping district, the British Foreign Office weighed in calling on the Hong Kong authorities to protect the rights of demonstrators. (The Americans did the same.) For those who think Britain has been a bright beacon for democracy and human rights across the world, a new book tells of the extent of Pax Britannica’s global incursions.
Stuart Laycock’s All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To, found that at various times during and after its imperium, Britain has invaded around 90% of the countries around the world. His survey of histories of the almost 200 countries found only 22 that have not suffered invasion by the British.
US Lifts Arms Ban Against Vietnam
The Americans insist that even with this major policy change (the most significant since the end of the Vietnam War 39 years ago), it does not take sides in the South China Sea territorial dispute, is not anti-China, and is not destabilizing the region. And where does America’s purported concerns about Vietnam’s ‘human rights’ record go? Straight out the window. The Vietnamese are just so delighted. The hypocrisy of the Americans amazes.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-lifts-40-arms-ban-boost-vietnam-sea-004928897.html
Ooooh, the Grapes are so Sour
Oslo, Norway just pulled out of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics Games, leaving only Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing-Zhangjiakou still in the running. Oslo is the latest “democratic” country to bail following earlier withdrawals by Stockholm, Sweden, Krakow, Poland, and Lviv, Ukraine. St. Moritz, Switzerland and Munich, Germany had briefly considered a bid but quickly shrank away due to financial worries and strong local opposition.
This was all too much for a Financial Post commentator (the piece was also carried in the Vancouver Sun) who ranted that this bestowed legitimacy on “deplorable authoritarian regimes” like China, Russia (and Kazakhstan) that covered up their “crimes” with the magnificence of Olympic venues. A like-minded outburst appeared on the online version of Atlantic Monthly.
Talk about the height of Western arrogance, vicious defamation, and scornful sour grapes. As if only Western “democratic” countries had the prerogative to hold the Olympic Games. It’s their own fault that through pandering to welfare-seeking constituents and mismanagement of budgets that most Western governments have become heavily indebted and therefore lacking the financial wherewithal for such massive undertakings.
Ever escalating costs is a legitimate issue for all nations, even China, with its treasure chest of $trillions. Clearly, the estimated US$51 billion price tag associated with the Sochi Games scared off most contenders even though most of that figure went to long-term regeneration and infrastructure projects as opposed to the running of the games per se.
Almaty really wants the Games but has precious little cash. A Kazakh Olympic Committee member readily admitted to Reuters earlier this year that the country’s budget for the games is not big. If, despite its very limited resources, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) votes for Almaty next summer in Kuala Lumpur, it will be the first time that a Central Asian country holds the Olympic Games. Realistically, however, given the immense cost and technical complexity of hosting world-class events, perhaps it would be more prudent for the Kazakhs to bid for the Asian Games first before considering taking on such a colossal task. India’s dismal hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games is a case in point.
In this respect, China has plenty of experience, having held in succession the triumphant 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2010 Guangzhou (and the 1990 Beijing) Asian Games, the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade, and most recently over the summer, the equally laudable 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games (YOG), among others. The frugality of the Nanjing YOG bodes well for a thrifty Beijing-Zhangjiakou bid. 26 venues and 12 training facilities in Nanjing were modified and renovated for the YOG and only one new venue – the Youth Olympics Sports Park – was built.
While Beijing is flat, Zhangjiakou, about 100 miles Northwest of Beijing in Hebei province sandwiched between the Mongolian Plateau and the North China Plain, is endowed with the high Yan and Taihang Mountains and deep valleys ideal for winter sports. Some of China’s best skiing resorts can be found in the area and the authorities fully expect a successful bid to spur the burgeoning of a winter sports Mecca there. A high speed rail line between Zhangjiakou and the capital has been under construction for some time and is expected to commence service in 2017, shortening the ride to within 40 minutes from inner Beijing.
Although Beijing-Zhangjiakou will prove to be a powerful contender, the IOC has traditionally preferred to rotate the games among continents/sub-continents. A successful bid by Beijing-Zhangjiakou would be the third consecutive time that an Asian country will host either winter and summer games, following the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeonchang, South Korea and the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. But, on the other hand, as IOC President Thomas Bach poignantly remarked to AP recently, “You look into economy or sports, it’s always the same, everywhere the same. Asia is on the rise…”
Personally, this author would like to see the games go to Almaty since for one, Beijing and other Chinese cities have had the privilege of hosting an array of world class and regional-level games; and second, it would help put Central Asia on the map. The Kazakhs are strapped for funds and China has piles of it. Perhaps an arrangement can be worked out for the Chinese to help out their Central Asian friends. That would make Western neo-Cold Warriors cringe even more.
The Olympics are first and foremost about sport and providing athletes with the best venues and facilities in which to compete to their optimum level. In so doing, the games become a catalyst to promote sport among the host country’s people along with overall improvements to state and society. So, shed the ideological vitriol that pits ‘democratic’ versus ‘authoritarian’ states and encourage the hosting of thrifty and well-managed Olympic Games.
Economic Worries of Hong Kongers
This piece echoes the analysis of yesterday’s post: behind the political rhetoric and passion for protest lies deep economic anxiety of Hong Kongers and their resentment/envy of mainland tourists. Note the comments of a Yvonne Choy and mention of the infamous 2012 ad taken out in the Apple Daily (banner paper of Anti-China entrepreneur Jimmy Lai) depicting mainland shoppers in Hong Kong as ‘locusts’. This article headlined today’s WorldPost section of the Huffingtonpost.