Former NPC deputy Ng Hong-mun's latest revelation about how the British intelligence service community is actively engineering and manipulating political issues in Hong Kong has laid bare an untold fact: the city is being victimized by a new kind of Cold War mentality.

Destabilizing Hong Kong will never be in anyone's interests. Nonetheless, in recent years the city has been witnessing increasing political disputes, many of which were orchestrated by external forces. The only logical explanation for the increased activities of foreign forces - mainly US and British intelligence agents - is that the city, being a free port and the southern gateway of China, is being used as a bridgehead to contain the rise of the nation.

While ideology carries less weight nowadays compared with the past, the Cold War mentality this time has arisen from the competition for global resources and worries that a stronger China will threaten the dominance of the US and its Western allies in the world.

Obviously, setting fire in China's backyard is the handiest way to retard the country's development and prevent it from becoming stronger. Unfortunately, Hong Kong is being used as the channel to set fire. Hence, we have seen so many self-named "pro-democracy activists" sneaking into the mainland and causing trouble.

Grabbing the right to govern Hong Kong will guarantee these hostile external forces a more convenient bridgehead and a permanent base for their China-bashing activities. Hence, it is not surprising that several prominent British intelligence agents have recently returned to the city to waken their "sleepers" who are now orchestrating the political activities surrounding the Chief Executive Election by universal suffrage in 2017.

Placing "sleepers" and planting political landmines in an ex-colony for whatever purpose is a routine task for British colonial rulers whenever they leave a colony. By doing this, they have successfully made a mess in South Asia, in the Middle East and Africa. But these hostile external forces and their local puppets will in no way succeed in Hong Kong because the city has no racial and territorial disputes that breed hatred. And Cold War mentality will prove to be a double-edged sword.

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 04/24/2013 page1)