Sze Man

It's about governing power

"Occupy Central" front man Tai Yiu-ting has publicly vowed the mass protest is a "political A-bomb" set to explode in Central when the time comes to paralyze Hong Kong's financial nerve center, with terrible fallout around the world, and to force the central government to accept the opposition camp's constitutional reform plan. To accomplish this goal they will do whatever necessary, even break the law and use violence.

Most local residents do not support "Occupy Central" because they believe it violates the spirit of the rule of law and Hong Kong's core values. Recent opinion polls show Hong Kong people value "order" and "freedom" most, not the "democracy" of which "Occupy Central" advocates talk all the time. The local business community and average residents are deeply worried. Many of them wonder and have asked who will be held accountable when it turns into a full-blown riot.

Some multinational financial corporations and trading companies based in Central are now assessing the negative impact "Occupy Central" may have on Hong Kong's business environment and preparing to abandon Hong Kong in a worst case scenario. No doubt Hong Kong's economy will collapse when that happens and life will go downhill from there for local residents.

Hong Kong never had democracy under the British colonial rule, when the governor was appointed by the British Crown and so were all the legislators. There was absolutely no room for democratic exercise as far as the political structure was concerned back then. And any demand for democracy was either rejected immediately or shelved indefinitely by the colonial administration. So, no explanation is truly necessary as to why Hong Kong became worthy of "democracy" only when the handover was a done deal. The same reason goes for all the drama staged by those "democracy fighters" in the past 16 years.

The fact is the political wrestling that has been going on in Hong Kong is about the city's governing power and nothing else, which is why certain Western powers have never seriously tried to hide their interest in taking control of Hong Kong's constitutional development by supporting their hand-picked proxies however necessary. As for the "Occupy Central" campaign, it is really a desperate thrust by the Western powers to seize Hong Kong's governing power by holding its prosperity and stability hostage.

The author is a current affairs commentator. This is an excerpted translation of his article published in Hong Kong Commercial Daily on May 22.

No one is above the law

Legislators Wong Yuk-man and Chan Wai-yip on Tuesday were found guilty of illegal assembly and sentenced to six and five weeks of imprisonment, suspended for 14 and 12 months, respectively. Their sentences are deserved in every sense. As presiding judge To Ho-shing stated in court, no one is above the law and anyone who breaks the law will be penalized according to law regardless of his political standing. It is unacceptable to violate the law with large-scale radical activities no matter how strongly one feels about certain social issues. This is no doubt a warning to those involved in "Occupy Central" as well, because it is a mass political campaign meant to jeopardize Hong Kong's rule of law.

Wong and Chan led nearly a thousand followers to Government House after taking part in the July 1 protest march in 2011 and tried to break into the Chief Executive's official residence through a police cordon. When that failed they blocked one of the busiest streets in the area instead. It was not the first time those two lawmakers organized and led intense mass activities against the law and managed to get away with it by citing various political excuses, as if their political belief was a license to break the law without consequence.

The opposition camp plans to use "Occupy Central" in the name of "true democracy" to paralyze Central with a mass illegal gathering that will seriously disrupt public order and jeopardize the rule of law. From a legal point of view, all those involved in organizing and participating in "Occupy Central" can be suspects in breaking any of many criminal codes listed in the Public Order Ordinance. And "fighting for true democracy" certainly cannot shield them from justice if they are found guilty in a court of law this time.

According to the Basic Law any legislative councillor found guilty of a criminal offense and sentenced to imprisonment for longer than a month in the Hong Kong SAR or outside, can be stripped of their lawmaker status by a two-thirds majority in a LegCo vote. It applies to Wong and Chan in this case because their sentences are both longer than one month.

This is an excerpted translation of a Wen Wei Po editorial published on May 22.

(HK Edition 05/23/2013 page9)