Brown-nosing the Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office(HKMAO), the Chief Secretary for Administration just laid bare the incompetence and hypocrisy of this government, which is supposed to represent Hong Kong people, with his remarks made on Sunday. Not only do such proceedings to keep pledging allegiance to and thanking Beijing fail to improve the images of the SAR government and Beijing in the eyes of Hong Kong people, but also they feel disgusting. In the colonial era, did any governor curry favor with any UK prime minister and officials from the Foreign Affairs Office? If that is not degeneration, what else is that? But can the SAR government officials win over respect from Hong Kong people? No, they will simply get despised more at nobody’s instigation!

If, like what the Chief Secretary said, the political system issue has never fallen into the area of the high degree of autonomy, then what are the articles concerning the political system in the Basic Law written for? Why is there so-called interpretation on the Basic Law by Beijing concerning the change of a trilogy of the political reform into a quintet? Can anyone tell us clearly how many more times such reneging on promise will take place? Obviously, if it keeps happening, the so-called authoritativeness of the Basic Law or Beijing will only be on decline from bad to worse!

At the end of the day, pretexts are incessantly found for Beijing breaking its promises! The so-called important speech delivered by Director of the HKMAO Xia Baolong early last week is not only self-contradictory, but also negates what Beijing has promised Hong Kong people. Savagely bringing Hong Kong people to their knees with might and power instead of properly coping with the shortcomings of Hong Kong’s polity is not the way to tackle the problem, but will complicate it and make it more difficult to deal with. The entire society will only get bogged down in long-term chaos.

Now that the SAR government is tying in with the overall control strategy adopted by Beijing, the election regulations put forward last week might let the mighty regime show off its ability for a while. However, wrecking all the legitimate systems devised for collecting public opinion, solving problems, reconciling conflicts, and marshalling divergent and intricate interests will only make it a more arduous task to govern the society. If councils, public institutions, statutory organs, civil servants and even judges of all levels become proxies of movers and shakers, and all alternative opinions are excluded, public credibility of the system will be obliterated. When everyone is aware the system and the people in power are not authorized by public opinion, but empowered by mere empty rhetoric about a priori sovereignty without support from the public, it is simply unpersuasive. Such a feudalist and hegemonic notion is totally incongruous with what Hong Kong people used to live with.

Since the Handover, Beijing has not won over Hong Kong people’s hearts. The more it attempts to gain control of them, the more distant they are. That is exactly what a clash of civilizations is! Stressing the importance of sovereignty on end and making it an excuse for not making good on what was promised consequently gave rise to the idea of Hong Kong independence, which no one bought in the 80s, becoming a substantial conception among the younger generation. The regime’d better reflect upon whether hard selling without restraint the so-called sovereignty reigning supreme and the so-called overall control is the major cause of the disputes in Hong Kong for more than ten years, rather than whine about Hong Kong people and the younger generation becoming unrestrained.

Now, a regime that fails to win over popularity goes so far as to drag the electoral arrangement of Hong Kong back to half a century ago, which merely suggests that this government is good for nothing, and that the pro-establishment camp cannot win over support from Hong Kong people, but only counts on savage means and the so-called important speech that is self-contradictory, or the “as-a-matter-of-course” uttered by the Chief Secretary that few people would nod at.

Expelling all the discrepancies that are supposed to be embraced and reconciled via the system does not mean they will disappear, but they will only create troubles outside the system for this government wanting in public credibility, and be bound to make the entire society negatively resistant to the public authorities in the long run. The cost of governance and administration of the whole society is going to soar. The SAR government and Beijing is not solving the problem, but rather adding fuel to the flames by intensifying the polity issue and conflicts of Hong Kong. The city is going to be mired in an abyss of upheaval.

(Chung Kim-wah, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute)

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