Foreign Meddling in Hong Kong Protests: media reports

Posted by david on Oct 17, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments

The concerns of the mainland and Hong Kong authorities about foreign involvement in the Hong Kong student protests have been ridiculed by the Western press as paranoia coupled with conspiracy theory and yet recent media revelations make for interesting reading, to say the least.

The political donations to Hong Kong’s ‘pan-democratic bloc’ made by infamously anti-China media mogul Jimmy Lai have virtually become common knowledge in Hong Kong and the mainland (and mentioned in previous posts) but are further spelled out below.

As well, the background of Mark Simon, Lai’s media point man, is interesting, too.   Recently, he appeared on CNBC International to deny his boss’s financial and other support of the Hong Kong student Occupy Central’s street blocking strategies, likening it to “leading a bunch of cats”.

Here are excerpts from a Morning Star article:

….(A)s Wikileaks documents have shown, the US consulate in Hong Kong devotes enormous time and energy to monitoring Hong Kong’s political life. There’s money too, of course.

To take one example, the National Democratic Institute, the US Democratic Party-controlled wing of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), allocated $460,000 (US dollars) in 2012 alone to programmes directed at student activism on the contentious issue of the chief executive election.

Since 1997, the NED has funnelled millions of dollars into the territory to support supposedly independent human rights groups and trade unions affiliated with the opposition. The latter funds are channelled through the Solidarity Center, NED’s labour wing run by the AFL-CIO, and go to “democratic unions” — that is opposition ones. This is in addition to funds earmarked for general China projects that also include the mainland.

Money plays a big part in Hong Kong politics and the local pro-Beijing forces are no strangers to donations from the city’s wealthy elite. However, it is the internationalisation of the Hong Kong political scene that concerns Beijing.

It fears that foreign forces seek to interfere in what it considers China’s sovereign affairs to polarise Hong Kong society and become a source of internal instability and international finger wagging.

The regular international tours by Hong Kong Democratic Party founder Martin Lee and former Chris Patten deputy Anson Chan to the United States and Britain have been followed up by pleas from the pair to the US and British governments to intervene — actions the Chinese government sees as at best unpatriotic and at worse verging on treachery.

Just some months ago, startling revelations appeared in the Hong Kong media about the largesse of Hong Kong millionaire Jimmy Lai, owner of Hong Kong’s main anti-Beijing newspaper Apple Daily and who has substantial interests in Taiwan.

Hackers had copied some 900 emails and documents from the computer systems of one of Lai’s senior executives. As the daily Hong Kong Standard reported on July 22: “Leaked documents showed Lai has donated more than $40 million (Hong Kong dollars, £3.2m) to the pan-democratic camp and legislators since 2012, of which $9.5m was made to four political parties in April 2012.

“Lai also gave the Democratic Party $10m in two payments — $5m in October 2013 and $5m in June 2014. The Civic Party also got an additional of $6m during the period.

“Alliance for True Democracy convener Joseph Cheng Yue-shek and Occupy Central organiser Reverend Chu Yiu-ming received $300,000 in June 2013 and $400,000 in April 2013 and April 2014, respectively.

“Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang got $3.5m — more than twice the $1.3m she received from Lai between 2007 and 2009. “Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun received $6m and Democratic Party founder Martin Lee Chu-ming got $300,000.”

Perhaps more surprising were donations to League of Social Democrats lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung $1 million and donations to the Hong Kong Labour Party’s Lee Cheuk-yan. Long Hair is a charismatic semi-Trotskyist known for sporting a seemingly endless collection of Che Guevara T-shirts. Lee is the General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), the major partner of the Solidarity Center in the territory, which issued the rather hollow call for a general strike on October 1, the first day of a two-day holiday.

Millionaire Lai’s dodgy connections don’t end there. The payments were made by Lai’s US financial aide Mark Simon, former head of the Hong Kong branch of US Republicans Abroad.

Simon is the son of a career CIA agent and is himself a former US naval intelligence officer. For the sum of $75,000 (US dollars), Lai also hired Paul Wolfowitz as a special adviser in 2013 on his business projects in Burma.

Wolfowitz has served on the board of the NED and is the author of the Wolfowitz doctrine, whose core idea was how to prevent the rise of any rival power to the US in a post-Soviet world. He was also the scandal-prone head of the World Bank and served in the US Defence Department in the administrations of George HW Bush and George W Bush. Wolfowitz visited Hong Kong on May 27 this year and held a five-hour meeting with Lai onboard his yacht.

Here is more stuff on Simon floating around on the Chinese Internet:

Ta Kung Pao report in July quoted Simon as admitting (re-translated back into English):  “My father worked for the CIA  for 35 years….” “I’ve interned at the CIA and worked for 4 years in the Intelligence Department of the (US) Navy…”  Talking about his spying experience, he said, “I’ve never hidden the fact that I’ve worked for the US Navy; in fact, I feel proud of it.  However, since leaving the service in 1991, I never worked again for any government intelligence agency, and I’ve never cooperated with them or accepted an remuneration from them…”

Ta Kung Pao continued with its expose of Simon:  Simon moved to Hong Kong in the 1990s working for Sea-Land Service Co.  At a Wall Street Journal function for commentators, former Bush Junior speech writer and conservative columnist Bill McGurn introduced him to Jimmy Lai and soon after Simon went to work for Lai in 2000.

Talking about his work for Lai, Simon said, “My work is to make money for Next Media and Mr Lai.  I do my best and in spite of the pressure, I benefit from it…”.  His other tasks include managing Lai’s private donations and shareholdings, real estate and hotel investment, along with Next Media’s advertising and marketing strategies.

In one disclosed email, he said, “At Next Media I am responsible for handling human rights cases, and often fight against Asian non-democratic regimes…”.  “We support democracy….this is my job and we like to work for democracy…Mr Lai is firm in his convictions and respectful of others….Other than hardcore pro-China types, nobody believes we are doing anything wrong…”

Simon insists he’s not anti-mainland and anti-CPC (should be taken with a grain of salt):  “The global situation has changed.  China wants equal treatment from other countries.  This means raising its level of openness and transparency….If we use a glass of water to describe China’s freedom, it isn’t half empty but half full and more is being added.  China will develop its own political system and I believe it will work smoothly.  Imagine the kind of China our children will see which will certainly be surprising…”