US Political Infuence Among Young Hong Kong Activists ( Part I)

Posted by david on Oct 6, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments

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 16^th, the Civic Party English Group and the advocacy group Hong Kong 2020 headed by Anson Chan disclosed details of a meeting held on September 5^th.  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.