Apparently Beijing has sent a 600-people nucleic acid testing support team to the inflatable laboratory at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park to assist with the testing. Organized by the Hong Kong Liaison Office, the team members met some media to promote their work. RTHK has interviewed Deng Yanqin, one of the members, who said that the team has been divided into a dozen groups. Initially, there were two shifts and they had to work 12 hours per day. She found the work very hard and some team members have sore muscles, even injuries on their hands and shoulders. Therefore it has been changed to three shifts per day, some people even have to wear diapers so they can “work continuously.”

They might well be working very hard and are exhausted, because this is a Hong Kong saving mission gifted by the Party Committee to show Beijing fully supports Carrie Lam. This political task cannot be failed or it will drag down the Chief Executive, who has already been loathed by the citizens for a long time. One can imagine how big the pressure must be. Nevertheless, Hongkongers will not be grateful to them just because they work 12 hours a day and have to wear diapers at work, because this only reflects a poor policy planning, the inhumane and lack of common sense of the management. The highest priority of testing is accuracy, then the speed and effectiveness, so that it can successfully stop the virus from spreading. That’s why experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC of the U.S. said universal testing is meaningless and wasteful, because testing resources should be used on the “right people,” which are those at risk of being infected, and not to be used to test how much Hongkongers “love the country and love the Party.” So who decided Hongkongers should do universal testing? “Don’t bite off more than you could chew.” Whoever set up this Great Leap Forward-type of goal with limited human resources and without checking the reality, has no idea how to lead and obviously does not care about human lives.

What even more ridiculous is, what century are we living in that such an inhumane way of management still exists. The most important thing for testing is accuracy, when you work continuously for 12 hours without eating or going to the toilet would only affect your work performance or even lead to mistakes that are counterproductive. Virus testing is no war, having a lot of people at work does not help. Each time when a natural disaster happens in the mainland, there are reports highlighting and praising these heroes who disregard the danger and save lives. In recent years, however, Hongkongers are no longer moved by this mainland government propaganda because everyone is thinking with common sense: why is no one accountable for having built these shabby constructions? Why are the media not allowed to monitor? Under what system would lead to the disrepair of water conservation and flood control projects? Where has the money gone? When every rescue action becomes propaganda for patriotism, people from the mainland might be used to it, but Hongkongers won’t buy it.

While promoting their “Hong Kong saving” medical assistance, state-run media has also posted a 1-minute long video which shows the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) practicing the use of mortars, heavy machine guns, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenade launchers. China News uses “All Guns Blazing” as the headline, saying the training was taken place in Hong Kong recently “to test the quality and effectiveness of the professional training of the firepower unit.” All guns blazing, who are they using anti-tank rocket launchers in Hong Kong against? Is Beijing trying to keep using a high-handed approach to threaten Hongkongers, or does it want to use the sentimental card as a soft promotion? Do they really know what they are doing?

I believe most citizens don’t care about this pretentious propaganda anymore. We believe in civilized governing. First, become a modern citizen, then a Hongkonger. A civilized society is all about the transparency of its system, standards, consensus, effectiveness and decisions-making. We don’t need all the modern-day Lei Feng (1940-1962, a PLA soldier who became a propaganda symbol of a model citizen who loved and was devoted to the Party) to enforce policies like they are organizing a movement. The decision-making process of this universal testing program was done behind a closed door and local experts' opinions were not considered; Carrie Lam has been obnoxious, arrogant and keeps turning on the CCP propaganda machine, calling all her oppositions as anti-Beijing and anti-socialism. But Hongkongers are already numb to your aggression, whether you are nice or nasty, no one cares.

(Lau Sai Leung is a political commentator based in Hong Kong and a former full-time member of the HKSAR Central Policy Unit.)

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