by Fong Yuen

The CCP has engineered an attack on Carrie Lam with the left media and pro-Beijing camp, which indicates the end of Lam’s political career. The question now is who will be replacing her.

The anti-ELAB movement has exposed Hong Kong’s deep social conflicts, which did not come from Hong Kong itself but originated from the irreconcilable clashes between the CCP that implements dictatorship regime and the Hongkongers who pursue universal values.

The unrest last year revealed a series of problems in the pro-Beijing camp. First of all, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) has been working on the grassroots for decades but lost every seat in last year’s District Council election. That means DAB can only buy off the housewives and the elderly. When the young and middle-class people’s political passion is fired up, they would all go back to their districts to vote. The DAB would have no chance.

Secondly, the Hong Kong middle class never liked the pro-Beijing camp. People from the middle class are politically and economically independent and cannot be bought off or fooled easily. The education, medical, and social work sectors are the typical middle class who mostly favor the pro-democracy camp.

Thirdly, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing political parties lack a social foundation. The quality of their members is poor, and they have a low political discussion level. Their lawmakers are unmotivated and either doze off during meetings or do not turn up at all. The public was also disgusted by the scandal of Holden Chow’s secret collusion with CY Leung.

The problem is the pro-Beijing camp is spoilt. It does not always listen to the command and sometimes even throw tantrums, which has created a lot of trouble.

After the anti-ELAB movement, the CCP started to understand, suppressing the pro-democracy camp’s protests is not enough to solve Hong Kong’s problem. It also has to deal with a weak and incompetent Hong Kong pro-Beijing camp, a long-standing issue.

In CCP history, it has always been using repressive measures on local parties, which always only did casual jobs at the beginning of the liberation. As the central government and local parties always fought for power, the CCP decided to initiate the “anti-localism” movement in provinces like Guangdong and Fujian to suppress the local parties. Moreover, after the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong implemented a big swap among the eight major military areas and sent the highest leader of each area away from their home town to prevent them from gathering bigger local power and become strong enough to fight the central government.

Having been under British rule for decades, the Hong Kong lefties have inevitably got the habit of a colon. The government structure is of the old British Hong Kong system with many restrictions; the Common Law also stops the executive departments from doing what they want. All these, in the eyes of the CCP, are the obstacles to ruling Hong Kong. Therefore rebuilding the pro-Beijing political map would probably be the focus of the CCP in the future.

The core people of the recently risen Bauhinia Party are overseas returnees with a mainland cultural background. Some of them are highly educated and have worked in multinational companies. They have an international perspective and know a lot of people. If using them as the backbones and recruiting Hong Kong’s scattered middle-class talents, the party could be a new political power.

The overseas returning talents can compensate for what a traditional pro-Beijing camp political map is missing. Those educated new immigrants from China, the professional mainland Chinese employed by Hong Kong and foreign companies, and the cadre brought in by Chinese companies from the mainland form a social foundation of the Bauhinia Party. These people have been brainwashed from a young age and are highly loyal to the CCP. Some of them are even secret CCP members. They are educated and with combat power. It would be beneficial to the CCP rule if they occupy a part of the political front.

Lam is about to step down, and there are many speculations on who the successor is. Lam Hang-chi has previously predicted that Li Xiaojia (Charles), who has recently retired from Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), could be a candidate. Li was mainland educated, used to work as a reporter, and has studied in the U.S. He has worked for international giants like Merrill Lynch Securities and JP Morgan Chase, and was the Chief Executive of HKEX for many years, and has accumulated a lot of political and business contacts.

Li is low key and calm and not known to many people. But he has an international perspective with experience as a leader and has very little connection with the pro-Beijing camp. More importantly, the CCP must trust him to have let him take charge of HKEX. Li has been living in Hong Kong for a decade and is qualified to be a Hongkonger. If he replaces Lam, he could still say, “Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong.”

Before stepping down, Lam has to finish the big retaliation on the anti-ELAB movement to carry the historical guilt alone. In the future, the national security law will take care of people’s protests. There is neither a previous dispute nor new conflicts between Li and the Hongkongers, so there will not be much hostility. If he then brings out more measures beneficial to people to get people to his side and portraits a positive image, he could slowly heal Hong Kong’s wound and might be able to rescue a little bit of credibility Hong Kong has for the CCP.

The Bauhinia Party is the fresh force, and Li holds big responsibility. It can then rebuild the pro-Beijing camp so that it obeys and cooperates. It could slowly adjust the terrible relationship between the CCP and Hongkongers to reduce international pressure – that is why the CCP wants to rebuild the pro-Beijing political map. But whether Hongkongers accept this is another story.

Click here for Chinese version

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play