by Koo Lap

Communists are second to none in telling outright lies without remorse. Zhang Xiao-ming, who was demoted from the Director to the Deputy Director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office(HKMAO), has recently delivered a perfect rendition of such a Communist Party’s specialty. He said, “I have heard rumors, mostly directed against national security agents accredited to stationing in Hong Kong by the central government, saying that they could apprehend people at will, and put them on trial in the mainland. Indeed, those words on the street are not worth refuting. National security agencies do everything in accordance with the law, and are restricted by stringent rules in China. How can it be possible for them to go unconstrained in Hong Kong?” Indeed, such a lie of Zhang’s is “not worth refuting”. However, before the transition to 1997, So Chi-yat and his wife had been escorted by public security officers to Zhaoqing from Hong Kong in 1995; after the transition, the people’s police “handled a case” with handcuffs in Mount Davis in Hong Kong in 2004; Poon Wai-hei and his wife were carried off from Island Road in Hong Kong by public security officers in 2013; Li Poh of Causeway Bay Books was taken away by force to the mainland in 2015; Xiao Jian-hua, whose whereabouts is still a mystery now, was sent to the mainland from Hong Kong Four Seasons Hotel in 2017. The ironclad evidence did not even hinder him from lying through his teeth:
“In terms of criminal justice system…the mainland is not much different from Hong Kong. Handling of criminal and civil cases in the mainland is strictly subject to proper principles - no punishment without law, retributive justice, presumption of innocence, no punishment in doubtful cases, unlawful evidence exclusion, burden of proof on the plaintiff, safeguarding litigation rights and right to defense of criminal suspects, defendants and litigants.”

Secretary for Justice keeps in step to blur two systems

The criminal justice system in the mainland being “not much different from that of Hong Kong” is obviously a mandatory lie for the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) forcing through the Hong Kong version of national security law. That is why Cheng Yeuk-wah, Secretary for Justice, can even reel it off: The basic principles of China’s criminal law, including presumption of innocence, burden of proof on the plaintiff and no punishment in doubtful cases, etc., are consistent with those of Hong Kong’s, and the two legal systems are almost compatible. She has even placated Hong Kong people that the national security law is not retroactive. Obviously, she has forgotten the interpretation on the Basic Law by the National People’s Congress(NPC) to disqualify the six Legislative Council(LegCo) members.

In terms of the specialty of lying, a deputy director is surely outsmarted by Deng Xiao-ping, “chief designer of one country, two systems”. To justify that it is legitimate for Beijing to draw up the Hong Kong version of national security law in violation of the Basic Law, Zhang Xiao-ming cited the chief’s 1984 speech: Inevitably, some people will make troubles, but don’t let them get in shape…certain factors in unrest and instability are predestined. Honestly, such factors won’t stem from Beijing, but will lurk in Hong Kong, or certain foreign forces.” Yet, facts have proved that the source of unrest stems from Beijing. If the CCP had not broken the promise of 2007/2008 “dual universal suffrage”, would the umbrella movement and anti-extradition law amendment bill movement have occurred?

The buck passer is self-contradictory

Apart from telling outright lies without remorse, another consummate specialty of the CCP is swearing black is white. Zhang Xiao-ming holds “the opposition faction and foreign forces” responsible for the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement because “they have, for a long time, smeared, and demonized the legal actions of the central and SAR government, creating alarmist talk and panic that abetted people in taking to the streets!” The CCP have been “smearing and demonizing” “foreign forces” painstakingly for long, which has yet been incapable of instigating 1 million people to “take to the streets”. Have the CCP been at its wit’s end with creating alarmist talk to deceive? Or have their lies been exhausted?

Be that as it may, Zhang Xiao-ming was bound to dismiss what Yang Guang, his subordinate, said in September last year: the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement has to a certain extent reflected some deep-rooted structural imbalance and problems of Hong Kong society…especially youngsters grumbling about housing, the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor, and the upward immobility. Zhang then turned to bow his head to admit that “the major Hong Kong issue is not about the economy, or people’s livelihoods like housing and employment , or consolidation of the well-off, or upward immobility, but politics”.

Funnily enough, the only one Zhang can pass the buck to is the CCP, who was so perfidious not to make good the promise of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, and reproached “the opposition factions and the external forces behind” for being unreconciled to “build up Hong Kong with ‘one country, two systems’, ‘Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong’, ‘high degree of autonomy’ and ‘long lasting prosperity and stability’, but turning Hong Kong into an independent or partially independent political entity, a bridgehead for the anti-China and anti-communist campaign, a chessman of the external forces to hinder China from developing”.

Swearing black is white is definitely not worth refuting. But is Zhang Xiao-ming still convinced that those lies are marketable?

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