Rabble rouser bent on mission impossible: China Daily editorial

Benny Tai Yiu-ting, one of the key demagogues behind the social unrest that has roiled the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in recent years, has again revealed his political bigotry. In a recent commentary, the political schemer launched his latest "initiative" — urging his fellow travelers who have decided to leave Hong Kong to "leave with a mission".

That "mission", which Tai has been relentlessly promoting, is to subvert the political system in Hong Kong. In the previous "35-plus" initiative he launched in March, Tai tried to exploit the Legislative Council election, originally scheduled for Sept 6 but postponed for at least one year due to the pandemic, with the aim of orchestrating an opposition camp majority in the legislature.

Tai had no qualms about openly admitting the objective of the initiative, which was not to use a legislature majority to enhance the well-being of Hong Kong people but rather as a means to paralyze the legislature, the SAR government and the Hong Kong economy. His ultimate aim was to provoke major social unrest that would force a "bloody crackdown", resulting in "extreme sanctions on Hong Kong and the Communist Party of China". He likened this scenario to "holding onto the CPC while jumping off the cliff".

Although Tai tried to glorify his first anti-establishment initiative "Occupy Central" with slogans like "let love and peace occupy Hong Kong". The reality is, the major business hubs and thoroughfares of the city were occupied and blocked for 79 days, causing huge suffering to Hong Kong residents, aside from the loss of tens of billions of dollars in economic benefits. It brought no love or peace but tremendous damage to the city's social fabric, rule of law, economy and people's well-being; and worse, it opened a Pandora's box.

Now this caballer is peddling the idea of building a Hong Kong diaspora around the world, which would carry out his subversive agenda against Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland according to his design by lobbying and leveraging foreign support.

He needs to be reminded the political fanatics who have fled Hong Kong and stayed overseas are soon discarded by their foreign patrons like used batteries. They are useful only when they are in Hong Kong.

It is clear that blinded by his bigotry, Tai still does not see, or just refuses to accept, the reality that after the promulgation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong there is no longer any room for the kind of political machinations he is obsessed with.