In eventful times, there is always a magic mirror for revealing the evil. Admittedly, the situation Hong Kong is currently in has been most effective in trying a man’s mettle and laying bare the ugliness of human nature in the past five decades.

Since the start of the Sino-British negotiation for the future of Hong Kong, the ugliness of human nature has been turning up time and again. On the one hand, part of the meritocrats fostered by the British-Hong Kong government have undoubtedly been having on their minds the way of life and values Hong Kong used to enjoy and uphold respectively, proactively preserving Hong Kong’s system; on the other hand, quite a number of people have made a U-turn in the hope of gaining more political and economic perks from their master. In the eyes of the people in power in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the former have not been able to adapt to current circumstances, and have been upbraided for being ditched ministers, while the latter have turned into red fat cats. Even though they have been deemed used batteries of the British-Hong Kong government by part of the conventional local communists, the people in power would wipe the slate clean and capitalize on them if they pledge enough allegiance to the regime. That’s why some of them have been serving as advisers to Beijing, and today some of them have already outranked most of their peers. Of course, everyone knows it pretty well that they are just Beijing’s agents, but not really the ones ordained to administer Hong Kong.

The more Beijing mollycoddles them, the less capable the pro-establishment are of administering Hong Kong

Over the past 30 years, Beijing has been making use of their proficiency in figuring out what their master wants and being proactively cooperative, so praising them as the “representatives of Hong Kong people”, and reckoning them the public opinion basis of administering Hong Kong. As a consequence, not only has such a strategy of turning a deaf ear to Hong Kong people failed, but also made Beijing’s prestige and credibility decline steadily. This batch of people have really been good for nothing. Most of them have no talent and virtue. Worse still, while Hong Kong people have been holding them in low esteem, they have been stirring up different kinds of conflicts so as to consolidate their values to Beijing. The status of the central government in Hong Kong people’s heart have been plummeting, not only because of Beijing reneging on its promises time and again, but also the red fat cats causing damage on purpose.

But the fact is that the more Beijing mollycoddles these chameleons, the more difficult it is for Beijing to win over Hong Kong people’s trust in its administration in the city. And with the pro-establishment camp fanning the flames to transform the internal contradictions into the contradictions between China and Hong Kong, pushing the pro-democracy camp supported by public opinion to the very opposite of Beijing will only keep making enemies. Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, said his anxiety was this: “not that this community’s autonomy would be usurped by Peking, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong”. With the current situation in Hong Kong, the anticipation of the tragedy has been realized.

Even though a national security law for Hong Kong has been enacted, the situation in Hong Kong has not yet been pacified. Does Beijing really want to “keep the island, not the people”? If it was pursued, it would only reduce Beijing’s power and prestige, and prove its incompetence to maintain the stability and prosperity of

Hong Kong, wouldn’t it? And the current strategy only keeps on signaling that previous bungles can only be glossed over with bigger bungles. So, one year before the end of office term of the incumbent Chief Executive, now on top of the lady who “doesn’t mind being tasked with difficult assignments” standing up to present herself to Beijing, there is this person who has been looking for a fault in the Basic Law to put forward a consultation method for choosing the next Chief Executive in a bid to resume his job as the top leader of Hong Kong. This man knows well that he couldn’t even score enough votes in the Election Committee. Of course, I shouldn’t leave out the Executive Council member who has been coveting after the position. With only these candidates left for the top job in the city, is “one country, two systems” still appealing? Hasn’t it been reduced to a joke?

There are already too many such red fat cats that are only qualified to be made laughing stocks. Has Beijing lost its imagination in solving problems? Why has it kept putting them in important positions? Does it really believe they can be turned into genuine “patriotists” that are able to administer Hong Kong on behalf of Beijing, as long as they are requested to swear an oath to pledge loyalty to the Basic Law? Actually, a lot of Hong Kongers, including civil servants, understand very well that such political oath-taking practice is simply aimed at turning more people into accomplices to the power, and forcing more people to be red fat cats! How many of them do it sincerely and wholeheartedly? How many of them will choose to preserve their own inherent mettle? This is really a significant test for Hong Kong people’s willpower! In fact, the way Hong Kong people have been looking upon those red fat cats who have been praised as “patriotists” by Beijing over the past decades has clearly suggested the attitude upheld by the majority of Hong Kong people towards it.

(Chung Kim-wah, vice CEO of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institution)

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